Reassessing the Systemic Functional Subject
- a Hologrammatical Interpretation
Sune Vork Steffensen
Abstract
In this paper I present an analysis of Halliday’s functional interpretation of the Subject as the
carrier of modal responsibility, and as the warranty of the exchange. My analysis is divided
into three sections, each concerned with the Subject in relation to central aspects of
Halliday’s Systemic Functional theory. The three parts I investigate are: The concept of
stratification (§2), the concept of networks (§3) and the concept of functionality (§4).
Furthermore, I present an alternative interpretation of the Subject, conceived within the
theoretical framework of hologrammar, a holistic approach related to the field of
Ecolinguistics and Dialectical Linguistics. The approach is in many respects congenial with
Systemic Functional Linguistics, but with a few decisive differences. The hologrammatical
analysis is presented in three tempi, allowing systemic functional linguists to adopt the
theoretical insights to the degree they are willing to adapt the systemic functional: I present a
holistic interpretation of the metafunctions (§6). I present a sketch of a systemic MOOD
network (§7). I present a functional re-analysis of the Subject as a perspective indicator (§8).
Due to the ISFC context I have given priority to the critique of Halliday’s notion of the
Subject.1
1. Introducing the problematics
The decisive revolutionary feature of Halliday’s development of Systemic Functional
Linguistics was the re-interpretation of the systemic networks as functional networks rather
than mere formal networks. However, not all grammatical categories fared equally well in this
theoretical transformation. This is especially the case for the grammatical categories related to
the interpersonal metafunction, particularly the Subject.
As also pointed out by Paul Thibault (1992), the main problem seems to be that the
interpersonal metafunction is constrained by a very narrow view on dialogue as meaning
exchange. In a lucidly clear article Thibault, traces this narrowness to the underlying
production paradigm of Halliday’s theory:
The crucial point I wish to emphasise now is that Halliday recognizes that the social
semiotic is constituted in and through the exchange of meanings. […] The notion of
Nina Nørgaard (ed.) 2008. Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use.
Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication vol. 29
(ISSN 0906-7612, ISBN: 978-87-90923-47-1)
meaning exchange is critical because, as Sohn-Rethel (1978: 29) points out, in talking
about the “social nexus” [i.e. exchange relations], “we have to talk of exchange and
not of use”. […] The logic of the exchange structuralism which is central to Halliday’s
view of meaning making as involving the two basic forms of exchange mentioned here
[goods-&-services and information], places the emphasis on the immediately given
needs of the marketplace, whereby language is the mediation of socio-economic
activity rather than the collective guarantor of human experience. […] The
epistemological consequence of this reductionism is that socially made meanings and
the social agents immanent in social semiosis are reduced to the status of commodities.
[…] This implicit epistemology of social relations teaches human beings how to
behave like commodities according to the normative logic of capitalist exchange value.
[…] In Habermas’ terms, the clause, seen in terms of the exchange of information and
goods-&-services, no longer entails the coordination of social actors through norms
and values, but “through the medium of exchange value”, and with the consequence
that “actors have to assume an objectivating attitude to one another (and to
themselves)” [Habermas 1981/1984: 358]. (Thibault 1992: 158-167)
In this paper I demonstrate how Halliday’s Subject is constrained by the underlying theory of
meaning exchange. I do so by pointing to three problems in his Subject theory. The three
problems that I endeavour to investigate in relation to the connection between the Subject and
meaning exchange are:
•
The problem of stratification: The idea that the Subject as a lexicogrammatical
structure can be traced back to a contextual factor through a number of realizations
(§2).
•
The problem of network: The idea that the Subject can be defined as the realization of
a choice in the interpersonal system network (the MOOD system) (§3).
•
The problem of functionality: The definition of the Subject as the warranty of the
exchange, and as related to the validity of what the speaker is saying (§4).
2. The Problem of Stratification: Realizing the Subject
In the third edition of Introduction to Functional Grammar Halliday and Matthiessen have
written a new chapter with a title that is ominously similar to a mid-eighties publication by
Noam Chomsky (Chomsky 1986): The architecture of language (IFG-3: 3-36).2 One of the
cornerstones (to stick to the architectural metaphor) in their description is the concept of
stratification, which stems from SFL’s Hjelmslevian heritage. The idea of stratification
ensures that language is anchored in the ecosocial reality of the language users. In Halliday
and Matthiessen’s words:
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[…] grammar has to interface with what goes on outside language: with the
happenings and conditions of the world, and with the social processes we engage in.
But at the same time it has to organize the construal of experience, and the enactment
of social processes, so that they can be transformed into wording. The way it does this
is by splitting the task into two. In step one, the interfacing part, experience and
interpersonal relationships are transformed into meaning; this is the stratum of
semantics. In step two, the meaning is further transformed into wording; this is the
stratum of lexicogrammar. (IFG-3: 24f.)
The point is that each linguistic expression can be identified as a realization of a given
semantic meaning, which again can be identified as the realization of a given contextual
experience, either of the world or of the interpersonal relations constituting “the context of
situation” in Malinowski’s terms.
Surely, it is one of the merits of the social semiotic framework that it – via the theoretical
concept of stratification – links the expression forms of a given language with contextual
factors, whether it is the context of culture or the context of situation. However, if one wants
to establish such a link between two ontologically widely differing phenomena, it is crucial
that each phenomenon is perceived in its staggering complexity, and not reduced to a simple
entity that is easy to handle. Hence, Halliday’s approach necessitates that we acknowledge
that the dialogical situation (and the context in toto) is multidimensional, complex and
dynamic: what makes language function as an interpersonal phenomenon is the wealth of
emotional, cognitive, social, biological and ecological resources which implicitly or explicitly
are interwoven in each and every utterance, word and syllable.
Now, multidimensional, dynamic and complex systems are characterized by the fact,
amongst other, that they never exist in binary, complementary and predictable states. But this
is exactly what Halliday presupposes in his presentation of the interpersonal metafunction:
In the act of speaking, the speaker adopts for himself a particular speech role, and in so
doing assigns to the listener a complementary role which he wishes for him to adopt in
his turn. (IFG-3: 106)
If an adopted speech role assigns one and only one complementary speech role, then the
dialogical situation is reduced to a limited set of possible roles or role positions, if not
ontologically then surely epistemologically.
This reductionist approach to the dialogical situation can be seen in what is the only
contextual system network that I have ever seen in Halliday’s writings:
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ROLE
ASSIGNMENT
’move’ in dialogue
initiating
giving
responding
demanding
accepting
giving on demand
goods-&-services
COMMODITY
EXCHANGED
information
Figure 1: Halliday’s contextual system: “move in dialogue” (Halliday 1984: 12)
It is rather obvious that this system network restricts the dialogue participants to a limited
number of choices in a role assignment network. As stated above, this is a problem in its own
right, but in this context it is more interesting to contemplate how this reduction has
consequences on the lower strata.
A first step in this direction is to establish that there is a missing generalization in Figure
1. Thus, the two initiating-responding-pairs: giving and accepting, and demanding and giving
on demand are clearly interrelated in a way that allows for a giving-accepting-correspondence
and a demanding-giving on demand-correspondence, but neither a giving-giving on demandcorrespondence, nor a demanding-accepting- correspondence. As a consequence of these
correspondence pairs, the ROLE ASSIGNMENT system in Figure 1 can be dissolved into
two systems, as in Figure 3.
initiating
ROLE
ASSIGNMENT
responding
’move’ in dialogue
give
INITIATING
ROLE
demand
goods-&-services
COMMODITY
EXCHANGED
information
Figure 2: Halliday’s contextual system: a generalized version
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After this procedure, we can now ask how the generalized system on the contextual stratum
relates to Halliday’s semantic system, as for instance presented in IFG-3:
initiate
MOVE
respond
move (in exchange)
give
INITIATING
ROLE
demand
goods-and-services
COMMODITY
information
Figure 3: Halliday’s semantic system of SPEECH FUNCTION (IFG-3: 108)
The two systems are not just interrelated. The context system anno 1984 and the semantic
system anno 2004 are identical – ignoring the more delicate subsystems in the latter.3 In
conclusion, Halliday has not established a realization between the contextual and the
semantic stratum; he has, so to speak, semantified the context in toto. The question of course
is, why?
We get a hint of an answer by considering the before-mentioned fact – to the best of my
knowledge, at least – that this is the only contextual system in Halliday’s writings. This points
to an opacity in the status of Halliday’s contextual stratum: Is the context a systemic stratum
or a super-systemic stratum, leaving only semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology as
systemic strata?
Even within the same text Halliday oscillates between the existence and non-existence of
contextual systems:
Just as there is a relation of realization between the semantic system and the
lexicogrammatical system […], so also there is a relation of realization between
the semantic system and some higher-level semiotic which we can represent if
you like as a behavioral system. (Halliday in Parret 1974: 86)
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Now, it is very important to say that each of these systems, semantics, grammar
and phonology, is a system of potential, a range of alternatives. (Halliday in Parret
1974: 86; my italics)
A similar ambiguity can be detected a quarter of a century later, if one compares the
stratification model in IFG-3: 25 (Figure 4) with the stratification model in Halliday and
Matthiessen 1999: 5 (Figure 5):
context
content: semantics
content: lexicogrammar
expression:
phonology
expression:
phonetics
Figure 4: The Stratification Model in IFG-3: 25
Figure 5: The Stratification Model in Halliday and Matthiessen (1999: 5)
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In the former, context is represented in a way similar to the other strata, i.e. as a stratum with
the same ontological status, i.e. as a systemic stratum. In the latter, the context is omitted as a
systemic stratum.
The ambiguity of the nature of the contextual stratum is paralleled by an ambiguity of the
term social semiotic itself. On the one hand, it can be interpreted as a way of saying that the
semiotic system of language is embedded in and (partly) determined by the social sphere; on
the other hand it can be interpreted as a way of claiming that this social sphere per se is a
semiotic system.
In either case, by moving the system network from the contextual stratum to the semantic
stratum, Halliday gives his readers the impression that this is a linguistic network. Thus, he
makes it less transparent that the network is in fact a result of a reductionist analysis of a nonlingustic phenomenon, namely the dialogical situation.4 In this analysis the complexities of
attitudes, aspirations, strategies, emotions, etc. are reduced to a binary speech role positioning
in a meaning exchange game. Each and every utterance, with all its linguistic, historical and
ecosocial particularities are reduced to four and only four possible speech functions: offer,
command, statement and question.
I do not at all question that this distinction can be made. But I do question that it is an
exhaustive description of the speech functions, and I also question whether this is a beneficial
starting point for the linguistic analysis on the lower strata. To quote Halliday himself:
I think that if we recognize that the grammar of everyone’s mother tongue is (or
embodies, since it is other things besides) a theory of human experience, then it will
follow that this must affect the way we interact with our environment; and – just as
with so many of our material practices – what is beneficial at one moment in history
may be lethal and suicidal at another. (Halliday, personal communication; quoted in
Alexander 1996: 20; my italics)
I cannot exclude the possibility that Halliday’s meaning exchange theory was once beneficial,
but today it seems to me that it has more adverse consequences than beneficial ones, for
instance in relation to the outlining of the metafunctional theory. Consider for example
Halliday’s evaluative remarks on Karl Bühler’s speech function model:
He [Bühler] has a conative function and an expressive function. The difference between these two is significant psychologically, but linguistically it is very tenuous: is
an interrogative, for example, a demand to be given information (conative), or an expression of a desire for knowledge (expressive)? It is not surprising to find that ex-
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pressive and conative are not really distinct in the language system. They are combined into a single “personal” function – or, as I would prefer to call it, to bring out its
social nature, an “interpersonal” function. (Halliday 1974: 46f.)
Halliday’s implicit argument for operating with one interpersonal metafunction, rather than
two “personal” metafunctions, is that these two are complementary. As demonstrated, this is
only so because the complexities of the dialogical relationship are reduced to a binary
initiator-responder-model moulded over a well-known conduit metaphor with a sender and
receiver.
3. The Problem of Network: In the Mood
One reason for creating the reductionist meaning exchange model is of course that it gives
rise to the limited set of speech functions that in turn are realized by the presence and internal
configuration of the mood element: In English S*F realizes indicative, S^F realizes
declarative, F^S realizes yes/no interrogative.5
However, even in a typologically and historically very related language such as Danish
(which is a V2 language), there is simply no connection between the mood structure and the
speech function:
1.
2.
han
spiste
kagen
he
ate
the cake
i går
spiste
han
kagen
he
the cake
spiste
han
kagen
ate
he
the cake
yesterday ate
3.
4.
hvem
spiste
kagen
who
ate
the cake
(declarative, S^F)
(declarative, F^S)
(interrogative, F^S)
(interrogative, S^F)
The lack of universal – or even universal Indo-European or Germanic – parallels in the mood
realization of the speech functions indicates that Halliday’s meaning exchange theory has an
implicit starting point in the formal relations between declarative, interrogative and
imperative. Considering the historical development of SFL – where the functional categories
emerged from formal categories – it is difficult not to suspect that the reductionist meaning
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
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exchange approach is in fact derived from the isomorphic formal features of English. Robin
Fawcett also indicates this:
Halliday felt justified at the time [the early 1970s] in presenting the existing [form
system] networks as at least a first approximation to what was needed for a representation of the meaning potential of English. Thus the existing system networks had an
ambivalent status between being at the level of form (for which they had been
developed) and being at the level of meaning (which they were now said to represent).
(Fawcett 2000: 54f.)
This is less so when it comes to TRANSITIVITY, and more so when it comes to MOOD (cf.
Fawcett 2000: 57). The Subject was originally defined as a formal element in the clause, and
only later in the historical development of SFL did it evolve into a functional element. The
two stages of this development can be seen simultaneously in an intermediate stage in the late
1970s, for example in the analysis from Halliday 1977: 220, which is rendered as Figure 6.
Clause
I
would
as soon
live
with
a pair of
unoiled garden
shears
Experiential:
Participant
Process
Medium=
Process:
Attribuend
relation
Participant
transitivity
modulation
Interpersonal: Modal
Modulation
Attribute
Propositional
mood
Subject
Textual:
Finite
Attitude
Theme
theme
Theme
Combined:
Subject
Predicator
Rheme
Extension
Predicator
Adjunct (1)
Adjunct (2)
Figure 6: A Hallidayan clause analysis from 1977 (Halliday 1977: 220)
Here we see the last remnants of the formal analysis, namely in the last line “Combined.” The
Subject is placed on this formal strand, but at the same time it is also present on the
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Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
“Interpersonal mood” strand. Interestingly, the “Combined” strand is actually identical with
what turned out to be the lexicogrammatical stratum:
It is the function of the lexicogrammatical stratum to map the structures one on to
another so as to form a single integrated structure that represents all components
simultaneously. (Halliday 1977: 176)
Like Fawcett, I see in this model “obvious attractions” (Fawcett 2000: 73), and like him I do
not understand why it “was abandoned without any explanation” (Fawcett 2000: 73). But
perhaps it seemed to be theoretically unsatisfactory to operate with an inherently formal
stratum within a functional theory, especially in relation to the Subject, because it forces
Halliday to operate with two kinds of Subject, a formal and a functional kind.
The solution to this problem is right at hand: Halliday re-interprets the “Combined” strand
into an interpersonal mood structure! All things being equal this will imply a collision with
the existing mood structure. But since the only purpose of this is to distinguish between the
four semantic speech functions, this function is allocated to the primary degree of delicacy,
while the former “Combined” structure slips in as the secondary degree of delicacy.
This solution is a natural implication of the functionalization of systemic linguistics, but it
requires one thing, namely that the “new” Subject upholds an independent function, other
than (as part of the mood element) indicating the speech function. Thus, it became an
important task to identify (or invent) the function of the Subject; and the only limitation to
this project is that it must be given an interpersonal function, because only then can Halliday
keep his MOOD network intact. Later I argue that it could have been wise to re-design the
MOOD network, but let us first see how the Subject is furnished with a function.
4. The Problem of Functionality: Warranty, Validity and Responsibility
In IFG-3 Halliday and Matthiessen use three key words in the descriptions of the function of
the Subject, namely warranty, validity and responsibility. This is clear from the short
overview definitions of the Subject in the exposition of the three metafunctions:
The Subject functions in the structure of the clause as exchange. A clause has
meaning as an exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener; the Subject is the
warranty of the exchange. It is the element the speaker makes responsible for the
validity of what he is saying. (IFG-3: 59; my italics)
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791
The semantic universe of discourse in this definition is to a high degree restricted by the
reductionist view on linguistic communication as meaning exchange: The definition exhibits a
demand for warranties that can validate the exchangeability of an utterance, hence placing a
responsibility if the utterance for some reason does not hold its exchange value. Along the
earlier mentioned Thibaultian lines, this is an expression of a capitalistic mode of thinking,
since the capitalistic culture rests on two pillars:
•
The mercantile pillar of the free market where the social agents are free to enter into
exchange relation by means of general exchange equivalents (money).
•
The juridical pillar, i.e. the state apparatus that issues laws and bank notes and
guarantees the value of these through courts of justice.
Validity and responsibility refer to these pillars, respectively; and warranties function as documentations of juridical responsibility for mercantile validity. It is hardly surprising that the
three key terms are complemented by such terms as exchange, value, consensus, vest, transaction and invest.
Interestingly, this universe of discourse shows itself even in the syntax of Halliday’s
Subject definition; for instance in a sentence like: “[…] the Subject the duke specifies the
entity in respect of which the assertion is claimed to have validity” (IFG-3: 117). Halliday is
stylistically a marvellous author, and it is surprising to find such an example of officialese in
his writings.
Let us take a closer look at the term validity in IFG-3. It occurs seven times in the main
expositions on the Subject, and in three of these seven occurrences it is not stated what has
validity (the validity of what?), but in the last four this is made explicit:
1. It [the Subject] is the element the speaker makes responsible for the validity of
what he is saying (IFG-3: 59)
2. […] the subject the duke specifies the entity in respect of which the assertion is
claimed to have validity. (IFG-3: 117)
3. […] the Subject specifies the ‘responsible’ element; but in a proposition this
means the one on which the validity of the information is made to rest. (IFG-3:
117)
4. [The Subject] is that which carries modal responsibility; that is, responsibility for
the validity of what is being predicated […]. (IFG-3: 119)
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In Figure 7 I have arranged these four sentences synoptically.
I
1.
The
II
is
III
the element
Subject
2.
The
specifies the entity
IV
The
the validity
what he is
of
of
saying
[<respect>]
the validity
the assertion
of
specifies the element
responsible
the validity
the
[for]
of
information
that which
responsibility
the validity
what is being
carries
for
of
predicated
Subject
4.
The
Subject
VI
responsible
subject
3.
V
is
[…].
Figure 7: The relation between Subject (col. I) and validity (col. V) in IFG-3
It is worth noticing that in column VI the validation regards “what he is saying,” not that he is
saying; the assertion, not the asserting; the information, not the informing; and what is being
predicated, not the predicating itself. Hence validity (column V) is ascribed to the experiential
content of the assertion, not to the interpersonal assessing. This means that validity is an
interpersonal quality of the assertion’s experiential content.
The relation between these two planes is explicated in column IV: here it is clear that
someone or something on the interpersonal plane is responsible for the validity of the
assertion on the experiential plane (this can most clearly be seen in the above quotes in 1 and
2). Thus, validity is not a quality of the assertion per se, neither is it constituted by an
isomorphic relation between the assertion and the context.
The remaining question is whether the responsible part is a contextual or a textual (i.e.
semiotic) entity? An examination of columns II and III reveals that there is a systematic
ambiguity in Halliday’s presentation. The problem is the choice of terms in the two columns.
These terms are almost systematically ambiguous:
In III, entity and that are not theoretical terms of an either semiotic or non-semiotic nature.
Element is in earlier stages of SFL clearly a semiotic entity, since it is an element of structure.
However, Halliday has also used it in a non-semiotic collocation, e.g. to talk about “elements
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of the speaker’s experience” (Halliday 1969: 249). In IFG-3 the term is missing in the index,
and its exact nature remains unclear.
The situation is similar in column II. To be indicates a relation of identity, and since the
Subject clearly is a structural element, so must the element/entity also be a semiotic entity.
The other verb, specify, is not a theoretical term in SFL. It is ambiguous whether the specified
entity is a contextual entity (specify in the sense of referring) or a textual/ semiotic entity
(specify in the sense of defining). It appears that Halliday uses this term in a more everyday
use, i.e. as a determination.
It is impossible to decide whether the responsible entity is a structural element in the text,
or the referent of this structural entity. Therefore, it is difficult to interpret Halliday’s claim
regarding the famous proposition “the duke has given away the teapot, hasn’t he?” Halliday
writes:
It is the duke, in other words, in whom is vested the success or failure of the
proposition. He is the one that is, so to speak, being held responsible – responsible for
the functioning of the clause as an interactive event. (IFG-3: 117)
Thus, it is “the duke” (and since these two words are not in italics, this must refer to a human
being of flesh and blue blood) who is held “responsible for the functioning of the clause as an
interactive event”. But surely the speaker cannot blame the duke if his utterance does not
function as an interactive event between himself and a listener, or if the utterance turns out to
be false. I agree with Fawcett:
At this point I have to admit that I cannot find any sense – whether metaphorical or
not – in which it is helpful to think of the Subject as “responsible” for the ”functioning
of the clause as an interactive event”. (Fawcett 1999: 260)
My conclusion is that this is another instance where the meaning exchange theory to a large
degree has invalidated Halliday’s identification of the grammatical function of the Subject.
5. The Hologrammatical Subject: Dialogicality and Personality
So far, I have pointed out three shortcomings in Halliday’s theory:
•
794
Halliday has adopted a reductionist and binary theory of the meaning exchange, and
hence he operates with a distorted model of metafunctions, which for instance can be
seen in his comments on Bühler.
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
•
Halliday has forced his Subject to be a realization of a choice in a MOOD network
that is restricted by (1) the limited speech function theory and (2) the formal network
of earlier systemic analyses of English grammar.
•
Halliday has identified the function of the Subject in relation to the speech function in
a restricted game of meaning exchange, i.e. he explains the Subject in terms of the
general equivalent of exchange (in Marx’ terms) in capitalist economy.
In the remainder of my paper I attempt to demonstrate that these problems can be amended.
The alternative interpretation of the Subject is conceived within a framework called hologrammar (Steffensen 2006, 2007b), which is a grammatical theory – still in its embryonic
form, though – in the tradition of Dialectical Linguistics (Bang and Døør 2007) and ecolinguistics (Fill and Mühlhäusler 2001). Space only allows a very scarce sketch of the theoretical
prerequisites of hologrammar, but hopefully the following argumentation gives a hint of what
hologrammar is all about.
In the following I take a hologrammatical view on the Subject and suggest another conceptualisation of the dialogical situation and the metafunctions (§6), a new semantic and lexicogrammatical network (§7) and a new definition of the Subject (§8).
6. Re-interpreting the Metafunctions
When it comes to the functional question, hologrammar is deeply inspired by modern systems
theory, especially within biology and psychology. In particular, the so-called Santiago theory
(Maturana & Varela 1980, 1987), systemic psychology (Järvilehto 1998a, 1998b, 1999, 2000)
and Buddhist psychology (Rosch 1978, 1999, 2002, in press) has proved fruitful in the
development of a holistic grammar. The three theories share a view on representation: From a
biological and psychological point of view respectively, they all negate the possibility of
representational signs in the human mind, and thus they refute the point of view that
communication is exchange of meaning and that meaning is the sum of signs and their
combination. In the Santiago theory, communication is:
not the transmission of information but rather the co-ordination of behaviour between
living organisms through mutual structural coupling. […] Maturana emphasizes that
the phenomenon of language does not occur in the brain, but in a continual flow of coordination of co-ordinations of behaviour. (Capra 2002: 46f.)
The notion of coordination of behaviour is central in hologrammar. The invocation of behaviour does not point in a behaviouristic direction, though, since the theory does not acknow-
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
795
ledge a dichotomy between action and knowledge: “All doing is knowing, and all knowing is
doing” (Maturana & Varela 1987: 26).
If communication is coordination of behaviour, then a communication model is a model of
behavioural coordination. Since language is a medium of communication, it makes sense to
perceive language as a means of coordinating, and from a functional viewpoint, we should
expect language to be organised according to this. Furthermore, in order to speak about coordination, there need to be an order to coordinate; i.e. a specific pattern of existence, a worldview, a way of living, thinking, acting, etc.
From this, it follows that the speaker – when producing an utterance – does not just
express a given order; s/he actively seeks to co-ordinate the orders implied in the dialogical
situation. Hence, we should expect the utterance to be organised in a way that enables it to
take these orders into consideration. For this reason it is crucial to determine the orders
involved in the communication. I do so by taking into account a dialectical communication
model (or dialogue model) presented in Bang and Døør 2007: 59 (cf. comments in Steffensen
2007a: 22ff.):
Figure 8: A Dialectical Dialogue Model (Bang & Døør 2007: 59)
The intra-situational network of S1, S2, S3 and O has the same status as the three instances in
e.g. Karl Bühler’s organon model (Bühler 1934: 28). S1 and S2 (the first and second subject)
is equivalent to Bühler’s sender and receiver, and O is similar to Bühler’s Gegenstände und
Sachverhalte. But S3, the third subject, does not have a correlate in Bühler’s model. S3
comprises parts that participate without being participants, i.e. persons who neither carry the
dialogical I or you, but who nevertheless affect or are affected by the dialogue.6 Obviously,
there are many ways of being S3, and among these is the so-called anonymous third:
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Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
There is always an anonymous third party present when we use language. The
anonymous third expresses the cultural and social order that has pre-organised the
language use to a certain degree. (Døør 1998: 40; quoted after Steffensen 2007a: 24)
My claim is that to each of the four central factors in the model, there is a specific basic and
fluctuating order, and S1 systematically structures each and any dialogical utterance in
accordance with these four orders. However, since it is S1 who – as “sender” – produces the
utterance, the four orders are not seen per se, but from a first person perspective (cf. Varela &
Shear 1999).
Let us take a closer look at the four orders that meet in the communicative process of
coordination. Corresponding to S1 we find a personal order, i.e. the way in which S1
comprehends and structures the world. Corresponding to S2 we find a dialogical order, i.e.
how S1 (re)constructs, presupposes or anticipates S2’s world view. As stated S3 can be
interpreted as the cultural order, which of course also contributes to the organisation of the
utterance. Finally, I operate with an objective order, i.e. S1’s active and selective construction
of his/her environment. The four orders are established in Figure 9.
Personal
order
Dialogical
order
Cultural
order
Objective
order
Figure 9: The Dialogical Orders in Hologrammar
The next step in this line of argument is that each order is expressed in the structure of the
utterance through a specific linguistic metafunction (to use a familiar systemic-functional
term). I thus operate with four metafunctions: A subjective (cf. Bühler’s expressive function),
an anticipative (cf. Bühler’s conative function), a cultural (corresponding to S3) and an
objective metafunction. These are exposed in Figure 10.
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
797
Subjective
M.F.
Anticipative M.F.
Cultural
M.F.
Objective
M.F.
Figure 10: The Four Metafunctions in Hologrammar
At this point, I anticipate one possible systemic functional objection: In SFL the
metafunctions express “the basic functions of language” (IFG-3: 29), and the identification of
the metafunctions is both made from the “outside” and the “inside.” This is emphasised by
Halliday and others, e.g. Jim Martin. However, one has to be careful with the “inside,” cf. the
following early statement from Halliday:
The systems having the clause as their point of origin group themselves into three sets
which I have referred to elsewhere under the headings of TRANSITIVITY, MOOD
and THEME […] (Halliday 1981 [1969]: 138; my italics)
A quick glance at the network described (Halliday 1981 [1969]: 141), rendered as Figure 11,
reveals that this is not quite the case.
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Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
Figure 11: Halliday’s Clause Network (from Halliday 1981 [1969]: 141)
As can be seen in Figure 11, THEME is an organisation of simultaneity. This means that the
structural network relations point to five intrinsic systems (TRANSITIVTY, MOOD,
INFORMATION, COHESION and THEMATIZATION). The unification of the three latter
systems into a single THEME system is not an inside, but an “outside” grouping based on
functional similarity, i.e. similarity in relation to the interpretation of the systems’ functions.
7. A Hologrammatical Semantic Network
The four orders and the four metafunctions, corresponding to the four dialogical positions,
would in a systemic functional model be on a contextual stratum. When it comes to the
question of how they are represented in language, we move down a stratum and contemplate
Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
799
the semantic stratum. Although hologrammar does not operate with strata and network
formalisations, I have formalised the description of this stratum in a preliminary systemic
network:
Figure 12: A Semantic Network (examples in square brackets)
The network is a description of what Maturana and Varela call second-order coordinative
behaviour. The term “second-order coordinative behaviour” implies that the means of
coordination are themselves coordinated (“conventionalised” using a traditional term). For
Maturana and Varela this is what distinguishes “a linguistic domain” from “a communicative
domain”: language is a way of coordinating our communicative coordination.7
In the network, the choice of semiotic communication entails four simultaneous systems
corresponding to the four metafunctions and the four dialogical positions. All four systems
operate with two terms, Explicit and Implicit, because all semiotic resources can be omitted
under certain contextual circumstances. This does not imply, of course, that the personal, dialogical, cultural or objective order is left out, only that it is treated as an “idealised condition”
in the dialogical situation.
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Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
Many of the systems in this network are familiar from a number of systemic functional
presentations, so I will focus only on the following three systems:
•
SUBJECTIVITY>ORIENTATION
•
ANTICIPATION>PERSPECTIVE
•
CULTURE>ROLE DISTRIBUTION
These systems model the same insight that Halliday expresses in his distinction between
Subject, Theme and Actor (IFG-3: 53-63). I agree with Halliday that these three functions
belong to three different metafunctions. But we cut the cake differently.
Concerning ROLE DISTRIBUTION, the cultural metafunction contains those systems
where the valency relations are determined, partly through choice of valency (he ate much
meat vs. he porked out), partly through choice of semantic roles. For instance, the same
occurrence involving the same two persons cannot be described with these utterances,
although they all might be true:
5. hej made heri pregnant
6. *shei made heri pregnant
7. ?theyj+i made heri pregnant
This example demonstrates that the semantic role of Actor is not an inherent aspect of
semantic meaning, but rather an active construal of a particular worldview. This holds true for
all semantic verb-noun relations, although it might not always be so transparent.
Another example is the choice of CLOSURE (i.e. valency reduction) in the cultural
metafunction (i.e. in the CULTURE system). The combination of ‘closed’ (monovalent) and a
transitive verb, forces the speaker to use a passive construction (the cat is being chased). The
implication of this analysis is that we need to operate with emergent realisations, i.e. clause
structures that are not themselves the result of a systemic choice, but rather the result of the
interactions of other systemic choices. In the hologrammatical analysis conjunctions and a
number of other logical and connective resources are emergent realisations.
Having placed the Actor within the cultural metafunction, I suggest that Theme is interpreted as a resource in the anticipative metafunction, i.e. as a choice in the PERSPECTIVE
system. I quote Halliday again:
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801
The Theme is the element which serves as the point of departure of the message; it is
that which locates and orients the clause within its context. (IFG-3: 64)
I partly agree with Halliday, but his exposition gives the impression that the location and
orientation is a relation between the clause and its context. It is not. It is a relation between the
speaker and listener regarding the latter’s locating the clause in his or her context. In other
words: The Theme is the resource with which the speaker anticipates the listener’s natural
point of departure. Since much discourse is structured in a way that carries the reader through
the text, it is not surprising to find that the Theme is often identified as a discursive feature,
since many texts exhibit a thematic structure that resembles (or anticipates) a listener’s
perception (real or imagined) of some phenomenon (cf. Langacker 2000).
8. Re-defining the Subject: The Orientational Function
Finally I interpret the Subject as a function in the subjective metafunction, more specifically
as a result of a choice in the ORIENTATION system.
My claim is that the Subject functions as the speaker’s indication of his/her orientation
towards the clause and the context. That is, the Subject is an indicator of the speaker’s starting
point in his/her personal order. Roughly, I consider the Subject to be to the speaker what the
Theme is to the listener.
I am not the first to suggest that there is a connection between the speaker’s construal and
the choice of Subject. For instance, Susumu Kuno proposes a set of empathy principles which
primes the speaker to choose as Subject the one which whom s/he feels most empathy (Kuno
2005, cf. Kuno & Kaburaki 1977). For instance:
8. Then John hit Bill
9. Then Bill was hit by John
However, Kuno does not relate this to the grammatical function of the Subject, though his
observations strongly indicate this. In Cognitive Linguistics, Ronald Langacker has suggested
a reference point phenomenon, according to which the Subject is more prominent because it is
an initial point of access in the construal (Langacker 2000).
The hologrammatical analysis comprises both observations, and also Halliday’s analysis
of the Subject as the warranty of the clause. Hence, it is fundamentally in accordance with the
hologrammatical analysis to see the Subject as an interpersonal resource and not an ideational
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Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, OWPLC 29, 2008
one. The main difference is of course that hologrammar is not restricted by Halliday’s
meaning exchange idea.
The idea of seeing the utterance as a coordinative act makes it natural to expect that there
is a kind of “dynamical peg” that functions as an organisational origo for each order – a
mental axis mundi. For the personal order this is the Subject, for the dialogical order it is the
Theme, and for the Cultural order it is the Actor.
Sune Vork Steffensen, Assistant Professor
Institute of Language and Communication
University of Southern Denmark
[email protected]
Notes
1
I thank Joshua Nash, University of Adelaide, for proof-reading this paper.
Throughout the paper I refer to Halliday and Matthiessen 2004 with the abbreviation ‘IFG-3’.
3
I ignore a few minor terminological differences.
4
I call the dialogical situation “non-linguistic” only in the very specific sense: the dialogue is not part of any
semiotic system, it has no content and expression per se.
5
The imperative either does or does not have a mood element, depending on its markedness for person and
polarity.
6
The model also points to the fact that each and any dialogue is embedded in a social praxis that can be
described according to the logics governing it; in Dialectical Linguistics we usually distinguish between ideo-,
socio- and bio-logics.
7
Recent developments in multimodality have shown that the term “linguistic” is too narrow, since other
modalities also can be described as second-order coordination. I prefer to refer to second-order coordinated
behaviour as semiotic communication.
2
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803
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