Systemic Functional Grammar Analysis

A Comparison between Firth’s Language in Context and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar
By Ika Herdina K./13211144019
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A lot of developments have been conducted in theories of language marking a drastic shift from diachronic linguistics which is concerned with studying the history and the development of language to synchronic linguistics which views a particular state of a language at some given point in time. Two widely well-known theories that have a big impact on a development in syntactic theories are Firth’s Language in Context and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). Both of these theories focus on analyzing how the speakers generate utterances to express their meanings and each has been successful

SFG also pays great attention to how the speakers generate utterances and texts to convey their intended meanings. SFG also treats grammar as a meaning-making resource and insists on the interrelation of form and meaning. The term ‘systemic’ here defines as the development of detailed system networks describing and explaining many areas of English grammar which Firth has not been conducted in his studies. Meanwhile, the word ‘functional’ means the development of the metafunctions of language. Malinowski’s analysis of different types of context was the basic of Halliday’s three general metafunctions (this term used to describe meanings in SFG), namely, the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions. These three metafunctions are shown in a system network consisting of several subnetworks, such as transitivity, mood, and theme. Each subnetwork has a great role to reveal the meanings of each metafunction. In order to produce an utterance, “the system network is traversed, certain semantic features are selected, and the relevant realization rules are fired (2006: 2).” Having similar reasons to Firth, Halliday rejected with the American formalists led by Chomsky. Almost all of aspects referring to Chomsky, Halliday always opposed him. Chomsky believes that language exists separately with experience, while Halliday argues that language only develops through people’s experiences and the world around us. Chomsky says that language is innate, whereas Halliday believes that language is learned. Halliday, like Firth, acknowledged that he is closer to the European functionalists, such as Hjemslev, Troubetskoy, and the Prague school of linguistics for their functional approach to language. This theory becomes the basic of his theme/rheme