PAPER FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR - THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE

PAPER FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE

Lecturer

DR. Dra. Afdaleni. M. Pd, M. Pd

Class : PBI-5C

                                                  Rahmatul Husna (2317100)

STATATE OF INSTITUTE ISLAMIC OF BUKITTINGGI

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

2019/2020

 A. THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE

Text and grammar When people speak or write, they

produce text. The term ‘text’ refers to any instance of language, in any medium, that makes sense to someone who knows the language (cf. Halliday and Hasan, 1976: Chapter 1). To a grammarian, text is a rich, many-faceted phenomenon that ‘means’ in many different ways. It can be explored from many different points of view. But we can distinguish two main angles of vision: one, focus on the text as an object in its own right; two, focus on the text as an instrument for finding out about something else. Focusing on text as an object, a grammarian will be asking questions such as: Why does the text mean what it does (to me, or to anyone else)? Why is it valued as it is? Focusing on text as instrument, the grammarian will be asking what the text reveals about the system of the language in which it is spoken or written. When grammarians say that from their point of view all texts are equal, they are thinking of them as specimens. If we are interested in explaining the grammar of English, all these three texts illustrate numerous grammatical features of the language, in meaningful functional contexts, all equally needing to be taken into account. This in turn means recognizing that the contexts for THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE 4 analysis of discourse are numerous and varied — educational, social, literary, political, legal, clinical and so on; and in all these the text may be being analysed as specimen or as artefact, or both (specimen here might mean specimen of a particular functional variety, or register, such as ‘legal English’). What is common to all these pursuits is that they should be grounded in an account of the grammar that is coherent, comprehensive and richly dimensioned

THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE 8 word group word group word group word group clause clause little miss muffet sat on a tuffet complex clause eating her curds and whey clause clause there came a big spider complex clause which sat down beside her clause and frightened miss muffet away Fig. 1-3 Example of grammatical constituency enough (both categories, orthographic word and grammatical word, are equally fuzzy!). Grammatically, however, the constituent of a clause is not, in fact, a word; it is either a phrase or a word group (which we shall call simply group from now on). (We have not shown phrases in Little Miss Muffet; there are two examples, on a tuffet and beside her. For the important difference between a group and a phrase, see Section 6.1, p. 309.) Grammatically, a word functions as constituent of a group. Words have constituents of their own, morphemes. 

B. Phonology and grammar

If we want to take a comprehensive view of English grammar, we must first make an excursion into phonology. This is because there are some grammatical systems that are realized by prosodic means: for example, by the contrast between falling and rising tone. We can divide the phonology into two regions of articulation and prosody. Articulatory features are associated with smaller segments, typically phonemes (vowels and consonants). Prosodic features are associated with larger segments; they are features of intonation and rhythm. The gateway between the two regions is the syllable. As a general principle, articulation is ‘arbitrary’ (conventional), in the sense that there is no systematic relation between sound and meaning.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE 12 In the twentieth century it ceased to dominate, and there has been a new wave of input into poetry from spoken language — including, in the past few decades, from speakers of new varieties of English whose rhythms are very different from those of the original native speakers of the language. 2 Part of the tradition of metric verse was the analysis of verse forms in terms of metrics: this was an analysis based on the number of feet per line, and the number and distribution of syllables in the foot. A line might have two, three, four, five or six (occasionally seven or eight) feet; the favourite line, that of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and Keats, was the pentameter (five feet). A foot might have two, three or four syllables, but, in addition, it might be either ‘descending’ or ‘ascending’ — that is, the salient syllable might occur either at the beginning or at the end. For example, a two-syllable foot might be trochaic (strong + weak) or iambic (weak + strong). Of the verses cited above, Betty Botter is trochaic, while the world of apple pie and ink is iambic. This last distinction, between descending and ascending rhythm, is a property of metric verse form, accounting for how the line is organized into metric feet; it has no significance for the sound system of English. In spoken English the salient syllable always occurs at the beginning of the foot; a foot is thus like a bar in music, defined as beginning with a beat. The phonological foot, therefore, as distinct from the metric foot, consists of one strong syllable optionally followed by one or more weak syllables.

C. Basic concepts for the study of language

 The discussion so far has raised a number of theoretical issues, as can be seen from the variety of technical terms that have had to be used. We have referred to language (i) as text and as system, (ii) as sound, as writing and as wording, (iii) as structure — configurations of parts and (iv) as resource — choices among alternatives. These are some of the different guises in which a language presents itself when we start to explore its grammar in functional terms: that is, from the standpoint of how it creates and expresses meaning. At this point, we begin to need a map: some overview of language that will enable us to locate exactly where we are at any point along the route. A characteristic of the approach we are adopting here, that of systemic theory, is that it is comprehensive: it is concerned with language in its entirety, so that whatever is said about one aspect is to be understood always with reference to the total picture. At the same time, of course, what is being said about any Basic concepts for the study of language 19 one aspect also contributes to the total picture; but in that respect as well it is important to recognize where everything fits in. There are many reasons for adopting this systemic perspective; one is that languages evolve — they are not designed, and evolved systems cannot be explained simply as the sum of their parts. When we come to analyse the grammar, we find that the structure of each unit is an organic configuration so that each part has a distinctive function with respect to the whole; and that some units may form complexes, iterative sequences working together as a single part. Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created; it is natural that the systems of sound and of writing through which these meanings are expressed should reflect the structural arrangement of the grammar. They cannot, obviously, copy the functional configurations; but they do maintain the grammatical principle that units of Basic concepts for the study of language 21 instance potential CONTEXT LANGUAGE ideational interpersonal textual LEXICO GRAMMAR clause phrase/ group word morpheme content: semantics content: lexicogrammar expression: phonology expression: phonetics 3 5 instance type/ subpotential 1 1 2 Fig. 1-6 The dimensions in language different rank construe patterns of different kinds. In English phonology, for example, the foot is the unit of rhythm; it is the constituent which regulates the pulse of continuous speech. In this it is distinct from other units both above it and below it: from the syllable, which organizes the articulatory sequences of vowels and consonants, and from the tone group, which organizes the pitch movement into patterns of intonation. This functional specialization among units of different rank is a feature of the structure of language as a whole. 1.3.2 System (paradigmatic order) Structure is the syntagmatic ordering in language: patterns, or regularities, in what goes together with what. System, by contrast, is ordering on the other axis: patterns in what could go instead of what. This is the paradigmatic ordering in language (cf. Halliday, 1966a; Fawcett, 1988; Butt and Matthiessen, forthc.). Any set of alternatives, together with its condition of entry, constitutes a system in this technical sense. An example would be ‘all clauses are either positive or negative’, or more fully ‘all clauses select in the system of POLARITY whose terms are positive and negative’; diagrammatically as in Figure 1-7. To get a more rounded picture, we attach probabilities to the two terms: ‘positive, 0.9; negative, 0.1’ (cf. Halliday and James, 1993). Fig. 1-7 The system of POLARITY It will be clear that this is a more abstract representation than that of structure, since it does not depend on how the categories are expressed. Positive and negative are contrasting features of the clause, which could be made manifest in many different ways. They represent an aspect of the meaning potential of the language, and they are mutually defining: ‘not positive’ means the same thing as ‘negative’ and ‘not negative’ means the same thing as ‘positive’. The relationship on which the system is based is ‘is a kind of’: a clause having the feature ‘positive’ is a kind of clause. Suppose we now take a further step, and say that negative clauses may be either generalized negative, like they didn’t know, or some specific kind of negative like they never knew or nobody knew. Here, we have recognized two paradigmatic contrasts, one being more refined than the other (Figure 1-8). The relationship between these two systems is one of delicacy: the second one is ‘more delicate than’ the first. Delicacy in the system (‘is a kind of a kind of . . .’) is the analogue of rank in the structure (‘is a part of a part of . . .’). clause POLARITY positive 0.9 negative 0.1 THE ARCHITECTURE OF LANGUAGE 22 A text is the product of ongoing selection in a very large network of systems — a system network. Systemic theory gets its name from the fact that the grammar of a language is represented in the form of system networks, not as an inventory of structures. Of course, structure is an essential part of the description; but it is interpreted as the outward form taken by systemic choices, not as the defining characteristic of language. A language is a resource for making meaning, and meaning resides in systemic patterns of choice. The way system and structure go together can be illustrated by showing a simplified version of the system network for MOOD (this will be explained in detail in Chapter 4): see Figure 1-9. This can be read as follows. A clause is either major or minor in STATUS; if major, it has a Predicator in its structure. A major clause is either indicative or imperative in MOOD; if indicative, it has a Finite (operator) and a Subject. An indicative clause is either declarative or interrogative (still in MOOD); if declarative, the Subject comes before the Finite. An interrogative clause is either yes/no type or WHBasic concepts for the study of language 23 clause positive 0.9 negative 0.1 generalized specialized as Deictic (a) as Thing (b) in participation (m) in circumstance (n) POLARITY NEGATIVE TYPE NOMINAL GROUP FUNCTION CLAUSE FUNCTION am: none no + N neither (+ N) an: at no time under no circumstances for no reason in no way bm: no-one nobody nothing bn: never nowhere nowise seldom Fig. 1-8 The system of POLARITY, next step in delicacy STATUS MOOD TYPE INDICATIVE TYPE INTERROGATIVE TYPE minor imperative ↓ major +Predicator ↓ indicative +Mood (+Finiteo +Subject) ↓ declarative Subject ^ Finite ↓ yes/no Finite ^ Subject ↓ WH- +Wh; Wh ^ Finite interrogative clause Fig. 1-9 The MOOD system network type; if yes/no type, the Finite comes before the Subject; if WH-type, it has a Wh element. What this means is that each system — each moment of choice — contributes to the formation of the structure. Of course, there is no suggestion here of conscious choice; the ‘moments’ are analytic steps in the grammar’s construal of meaning (for the relationship between semantic choice and what goes on in the brain; see Lamb, 1999

            D.The location of grammar in language

 the role of the corpus 1.4.1 Recapitulation: locating the present work on the map of language This is not exactly a recapitulation; rather, the aim is to locate the present work in relation to the dimensions of language discussed in the previous section. In terms of stratification, the book deals with lexicogrammar, the stratum of wording. If we use the familiar metaphor of vertical space, as implied in the word ‘stratum’, the stratum ‘above’ is the semantics, that ‘below’ is the phonology. We cannot expect to understand the grammar just by looking at if from its own level; we also look into it ‘from above’ and ‘from below’, taking a trinocular perspective. But since the view from these different angles is often conflicting, the description will inevitably be a form of compromise. All linguistic description involves such compromise; the difference between a systemic description and one in terms of traditional school grammar is that in the school grammars the compromise was random and unprincipled, whereas in a systemic grammar it is systematic and theoretically motivated. Being a ‘functional grammar’ means that priority is given to the view ‘from above’; that is, grammar is seen as a resource for making meaning — it is a ‘semanticky’ kind of grammar. But the focus of attention is still on the grammar itself. Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organizing principle adopted is that of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features.