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Systemic Grammar
Systemic grammar aims to explain the internal relations in language as a SYSTEM NETWORK, or MEANING POTENTIAL. And this network consists of subsystems from which language users make choices.
The notion of system is made a central explanatory principle, the whole of language being conceived as a “system of systems”. Halliday defines system as a system of potentials, a range of alternatives.
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Transitivity
Transitivity is a grammatical system. I t “specifiesthe different types of process that are recognized in the language, and y are expressed”. The basic semantic framework for the representation of process consists of three components (1) the process itself, (2) participants in the process, and (3)circumstances associated with the process.
The system network in Systemic Grammar chiefly describes three components of function, or three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, and textual). Each of them is a complex system consisting of other systems, and choices are simultaneously made from the three metafunctions.
ranks (sentence, clause,
group, word, and morpheme)
The axis of choice
Meaning aspects of grammar
choice (paradigmatic)
Chain (syntagmatic)
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The relation between systemic grammar and functional grammar
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Functional Grammar
Halliday defines a functional grammar as “essentiallya ‘naturalg' rammar, in the sense that everything in it can be explained”. Halliday interprets language development from a functional point of view and formulates a functional theory of language.
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Systemic Grammar
On a general level, there is the Chain System and the
Choice System
Surface aspects of grammar,
The axis of chain
such as sentence structures, linguistic units, and their
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Systemic Grammar
First person person Second person
Third person
singular number plural
past
tense present
future
当从有关系统中一一进行选择之后（如人
称、数、及物性、语气、时态等），则可
生成句子结构。
Halliday and SystemicFunctional Grammar
Gao Lei
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? Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday has developed ideas stemming from Firth's theories in the London School.
? He is probably the most important representative of the SystemicFunctional School.
Systemic-Functional Grammar has two components: Systemic Grammar and Functional Grammar.
The interpersonal function embodies all uses of language to express social and personal relations.
The textual function refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any stretch of spoken or written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living passage different from a random list of sentences.
the ideational Three metafunctions the interpersonal
the textual function
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Functional Grammar
The ideational function is to convey new information, to communicate a content that is unknown to the hearer. The ideational function mainly consists of “transitivity”and “voice.”