A Systemic Functional Grammar of French

David Banks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351855778
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachen

A Systemic Functional Grammar of French provides an accessible introduction to systemic functional linguistics through French.

This concise introduction to the systemic functional grammar (SFG) framework provides illustrations throughout that highlight how the framework can be used to analyse authentic language texts.

This will be of interest to students in alternative linguistic frameworks who wish to acquire a basic understanding of SFG as well as academics in related areas, such as literary and cultural studies, interested in seeing how SFG can be applied to their fields.

1
By way of introduction

Language is a fascinating phenomenon. We use it constantly, every day, to communicate, and it would be difficult to conceive of human existence without it. Yet, at the same time, we would be hard put to say what it is. In fact, it is so closely bound up with our everyday lives that usually we don’t even bother to think about it. Linguistics, the academic discipline that does attempt to think about language, and ask questions about its nature, is peculiar. In other disciplines, we use language to talk about other things. In linguistics, we use language to talk about language itself. The object of study is also the means of communicating whatever we know or find out about it. On the other hand, since language is such an integral part of our everyday lives, which we all use constantly, everyone and anyone seems to feel free and able to make pronouncements about it, which can frequently be frustrating for those who have spent a lot of time and energy trying to come to terms with this complex phenomenon. Indeed, the more one looks into this subject, the more complex it seems to become. This may be true of all forms of research. The image I have frequently used of the researcher is that of a person who studies a grain of sand year after year, attempting to understand it from all angles. After many, many years he thinks he has just about understood his grain of sand, and it is at that moment that he looks up and sees the beach! Even so, he still thinks his years of endeavour were worth the effort.

There are numerous ways of approaching language, but I feel that they all fall into one of three main categories. I shall call these categories formal, cognitive, and functional. Formal theories, as the name implies, are those that treat language basically as a question of form. This is what most people would think of as grammar and syntax, and formal linguists would claim that everything that is interesting about language can be said in terms of grammar and syntax. Anything that goes beyond this, they would consider to be relatively subjective and not particularly serious, from an academic point of view. The most well-known theories of this type are those based on the work of Noam Chomsky, who has the distinction of coming as close as a linguist ever comes to becoming a household name. Since this approach deals with language as form, and much of the work consists in moving the forms around to form the different structural possibilities of a language, I often think of it as the Lego theory of language. Cognitive theories are those that attempt to discover the mental processes that occur when we communicate. Such theories became popular in the United States in the late-twentieth century, and have since spread to many other places. A particular, and separate, brand of cognitive linguistics has evolved in France, based on the work of Benveniste, and developed notably by Culioli. This French approach usually goes under the name of théorie de l’énonciation. The third category is that of functional approaches to language, which attempt to discover how languages work. This is the type of approach that interests me and that will be used in this book. There are many different types of functional approach, but the one that I find suits my purposes best is Systemic Functional Linguistics. This theory is based on the work of Michael Halliday. The origins of Halliday’s approach can be found in earlier work, notably that of his own teacher Firth; to this he incorporated ideas borrowed from the Prague School of linguistics. The fact that I find this approach the most useful for my purposes does not mean that the others are in any sense “wrong”; they are simply attempting to do rather different things. Consequently, different linguistic theories should be seen as being complementary, rather than in opposition. If one compares Halliday’s approach with cognitive approaches, they can be seen as starting from opposing viewpoints, but converging on the same object. Halliday has said that while Systemic Functional Linguistics starts from language in order to move towards cognition, cognitive approaches start from cognition to move towards language. So they are on the same road, albeit starting from diametrically opposed points, and travelling in opposite directions; presumably they should meet somewhere in the middle! Formal approaches are somewhat different, but all approaches have to deal with form at some point since language is always realised as form, whether it is as sound or in some visual form.

Systemic Functional Linguistics is functional in two slightly different senses. First it is interested in the way a language functions internally; that is, how the different elements that go to make up the language work together to create meaning. Secondly, it is interested in the way a language functions externally. That is, how it functions in society, as a way of creating meaning in human communication.

This explains why the theory is functional, but it is also systemic. The term “systemic” is derived from “system”, but here system refers to the network of choices that are available to the speaker of a language. These are the resources of the language that are available to him when he sets out to communicate something to someone else. If at some point in the creation of the communication the decision has been made to use a noun, then it automatically follows that the noun must be either countable or uncountable. It must be one or the other; there are no other possibilities. If countable is chosen, then it automatically follows that one must then choose between singular or plural. Again, it must be one or the other and there are no other possibilities. This can be represented as follows:

Or, to take another example, if we are at the point of making a decision about the mood of a clause, then the choice must be made between indicative and imperative. If indicative is chosen, then the further choice must be made between declarative and interrogative:

In theory, the whole of the grammar of a language would form a single, though highly complex, system network, of which the two tiny snippets above would form parts. By this we do not mean that the speaker consciously goes through these stages; this is obviously not true. But it is intended to represent the network of choices, the resources that are available in a particular language. One of the peculiarities of the system network is that as we move through the system from left to right, we are making choices that are more and more detailed, or “delicate”. And the final, most detailed, most delicate, choice to be made is one about lexis, the actual words that are chosen to encode the communication. Many theories make a fairly stark distinction between grammar and the lexicon, or list of words that are available in a language. In Systemic Functional Linguistics, grammar and the lexis are part of the same system, which is why we often refer to “lexicogrammar”.

The lexicogrammar is perhaps the most central, immediate, visible part of the language. But it exists as a means of realizing or encoding meanings. The meanings it expresses are the semantic level of the language. Systemic Functional Linguistics distinguishes three different types of meaning, usually referred to as metafunctions. The ideational metafunction deals with the way in which we represent the world around us and the inner world of our thoughts and feelings. For example, this would involve processes, usually encoded in lexicogrammar as verbs, and the participants involved in those processes, usually encoded at the lexicogrammatical level as nouns. The interpersonal metafunction deals with the relationships established by the speaker. These relationships can be either between the speaker and the message he is communicating, or between the speaker and the person he is communicating with. It therefore involves such features as mood and modality. The third metafunction is the textual metafunction, and this deals with the way in which the message is structured: what the elements are that begin or end the clause and why. Although we can only talk about one of the metafunctions at a time, and may sometimes be particularly interested in only one of them, it should always be remembered that none of them are any more important than the others; they all have equal importance, and all three are always present in any piece of language.

Systemic Functional Linguistics insists on the fact that language is a social phenomenon. It always exists within a particular social environment from which it emanates. Thus, language depends on the context in which it is created, but once created it becomes part of that context, which is thus modified; so there is a constant process of mutual creation between the context and language. The immediate context is frequently called register, and this can be analysed in terms of three functions: field, tenor and mode. Field is the activity of which the language is a part. Tenor refers to the relationship between those taking part in the language activity. And mode is the method by which the message is communicated; in its simplest form this distinguishes between spoken and written language. Beyond register is the more general context, or context of culture, for which some use the term genre.

Systemic Functional Linguistics has never been a closed, fixed way of thinking. It has always been open to variations and alternatives. This is indeed part of its attraction, though it may sometimes be disconcerting for the beginning student or the person new to this field. Michael Halliday has sometimes talked about the different “dialects” of the theory. The version presented in this book is fairly close to the most usual version of the theory, though at some points it does bear some personal traits. However, readers who go on to read other books about Systemic Functional Linguistics should not be surprised to find minor differences in both content and terminology.

In the sections that follow, there are four that are fairly extensive, dealing with lexicogrammatical functions and the three semantic metafunctions – ideational, interpersonal, and textual. These are followed by three fairly short sections, introducing register, grammatical metaphor, and Appraisal Theory. All the examples used are genuine, in the sense that they are taken from real life. They actually occurred in authentic documents. Moreover, since this book is intended to show how Systemic Functional Linguistics applies to modern French, all the examples come from texts that appeared in the twenty-first century. So, this book presents a systemic grammar of twenty-first-century French. Throughout there are analyses of extended authentic examples, which are from genuine texts of the twenty-first century. It has been my intention to keep this book as simple as possible, without, I hope, becoming simplistic. I hope that this will give the reader the desire to go on to find out more about the theory, what it can do, and how it can be used. For this reason, these sections are followed by some suggestions for further reading. One of the difficulties of such reading lists is that they are out of date as soon as they appear since new books are appearing all the time; but that cannot be helped, and I hope that the suggestions will nevertheless enable the reader to go beyond this book.

2
Encoding language

Lexicogrammatical functions

In this chapter, we will see how clauses are made up of groups, and groups are themselves made up of words. We will see that there are different kinds of clauses, groups, and words. We will also consider how one type of unit can function as a unit at a different level, in a process that is called rankshift.

2.1 Groups

The basic unit of a text is the clause. The clause is made up of one or more groups. These groups are of four types: subject, predicator, complement, and circumstantial adjunct. Although there are other kinds of adjunct, the circumstantial adjunct is the most common, so when we talk about an “adjunct”, without further specification, this means the circumstantial adjunct. The predicator is encoded in language by a verbal group; a subject is the element that is primarily involved in the event or state described by the predicator, and can be probed by the question “who or what?” followed by the verb in question. The complement is the item that is secondarily involved in the event or state, and it can be probed by the question formed by the subject followed by the verb, then “who or what?”. The adjunct gives the circumstances of the event or state. Thus, in the following clause:

(1) Ils ont fêté Noël sur Twitter.

(Femme Actuelle, 9–15 janvier 2012)

The predicator is encoded by the verb ont fêté. If we ask “who or what ont fêté something?” the pronoun ils gives us the answer. This is the subject. If we then ask “Ils ont fêté what?” the answer is Noël. This is the complement. Circumstantial questions, like where? when? why? how? give us the adjunct, in this case, sur Twitter. Using S, P, C, and A as symbols for subject, predicator, complement and adjunct, this could be analysed as follows:

S	P	C	A
I1s	ont fêté	Noël	sur Twitter

2.2 Words

Each group is made up of one or more words. Consider the following extract:

(2)...