Systemic Functional Linguistics Case Study

Another essential issue in the Systemic Functional Linguistics is the three aspects of context of the register. According to Thompson (2013:40), register is defined as “certain recognizable configurations of linguistic resources in contexts”. In Halliday’s view, tenor, field, mode are able to describe aspects of language within texts. There seems to be a slight correlation with the three metafunctions, as field is concerned with the topic of the discourse like experiential. In the previous example, the field is Sam, the British oldest man who died a few days after he was labelled as the oldest man. Tenor represents the language users and their relationships with each other like the interpersonal meaning. In the example, the writer gives information to the reader for the event happened in …show more content…
The meaning of any grammatical unit can be explored by its function in context. The communicative functionality of the grammar refers to the different uses of the language. Grammar constructs meaning through the creation of clauses at a rank scale and through the use of meta functions- ideational, interpersonal and textual. Grammar is not an optional add-on to communication (Lock, 1996:267). In order for people to communicate, they need to know the topic and the chronological location by selecting appropriate process types, tenses, participants, circumstances. They also need to relate the content interpersonally by choosing appropriate mood, modality, polarity and also they have to be able to select the appropriate thematic structure and reference in order to connect the situational context. Nevertheless, “the fact that a grammar or a linguistic theory can lead to insights about the use of language in social contexts does not mean, in itself, that it captures the whole truth about language” (Bloor&Bloor,