SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL

LINGUSTICS (SFL)
REGISTER & GENRE (cont …)
Context of Situation (Register)
Halliday (1978, 1985) developed the notion of context of
situation by asking what aspects of context have an impact on
language use. Halliday (in Eggins, 1994, p.52) suggests that there
are three aspects in any situation that have linguistic
consequences: field, mode, and tenor.

Adapted from Thompson (1996) and Schleppegrell (2004) 

Field: what the text is about:
•Typical fields such as science, education, war, medicine, sports.
It can be more specific:
---- Science: biology: microbiology: virology: plant viruses
---- Education: Language education  English Language
education: Secondary level English Education
•Additionally, it can be placed on a cline of specialized vs. non-
specialized: is the vocabulary specific to the field, or does it use
vocabulary common to other areas?
•Specialized vocabulary may be used in other fields but have a
different meaning in the current field:
-----"constituent" (politics): a member of a political unit
----- "constituent" (linguistics): a syntactic unit
Tenor: the relationship between participants. It includes:
•Power relations
---- Unequal: father/daughter, doctor/patient, teacher/student
---- Equal: friend/friend, student/student
•Formality: formal/informal
---- Informal: I handed my essay in kinda late coz my kids got
sick.
---- Formal: The reason for the late submission of my essay was
the illness of my children.
•Closeness: distant/neutral/close:
Mode: what part the language is playing in the interaction:
•Role: Ancillary (language accompanying nonverbal activity, as
when we talk as we cook together) or constitutive (the event is
defined by the language, as in a speech).
•Channel: written or spoken, or some mix.

•directionality: unidirectional channel or bi-directional

(unidirectional allows the only monologue, while a bi-directional
channel allows dialogue)
• Projected channel: where the actual channel is not the intended
channel: 'written to be spoken' (e.g., a speech), 'spoken as if
written' (e.g., reciting)
• Media: +/-visual contact (e.g., -visual for a telephone
conversation); use of multimedia (blackboard, PowerPoint,
etc.)
• Preparation: spontaneous vs. prepared; rushed vs. time for
reflection;
References and Recommended Readings
•Celce-Murcia, M., Dörnyei, Z., & Thurrell, S. (1995).
Communicative competence: A pedagogically motivated model
with content specifications. Issues in Applied linguistics, 6(2), 5-
35.
•Slade, D., & Eggins, S. (1997). Analysing casual
conversation. London: Cassell.
•Eggins, S. (1994). An Introduction Systemic Functional
Linguistics. London: Pinter Publisher Ltd.
•Gerot, L and Wignell, P.(1995). Making Sense of Functional
Grammar: An Introductory Book. Sydney: Gerd Stabler.
•Halliday, M.A.K. 1984. Language as Code and Language as
Behaviour: A Systemic Functional Interpretation of the Nature
and Ontogenesis of Dialogue, in R. Fawcett, M.A.K Halliday,
S.M. Lamb and A. Makkai (eds.). The Semiotics of 52 Language
and Culture Vol. 1: Language as Social Semiotics. London:
Pinter. 3 – 35.
• Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). An Introduction to Functional
Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
• Jakobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In Style in
language (pp. 350-377). MA: MIT Press.
• Lock, G. (1996). Functional English Grammar: An
introduction for Second Language Teachers.Cambridge:
Cambridge UP
• Matthiessen, C. (1995). Lexicogrammatical cartography:
English systems.Tokyo: Internat. Language Sciences Publ.