Tag: Teaching Grammar

This is the third part of a series summarising the basic concepts of Systemic Functional Grammar. The first post was a overview of SFG, the second post looked at the Interpersonal Metafunction, this post will be looking at the Experiential Metafunction.

In my fourth and final post, I will be examining the Textual Metafunction and considering how SFG applies to our language classroom.

This post is based on research from the following books

An Introduction to Functional Grammar

The Functional Analysis of English

Using Functional Grammar: An Explorer’s Guide

If the Interpersonal Metafunction showed the point of view of the speaker at the moment of speaking through the Mood element, one could say that the Residue carried the content of that message. And the content, in Hallidayan linguistics is categorised by different processes defined by the main verb of the clause. Here’s the 2nd Metafunction.

The Experiential Metafunction

Halliday (1976) originally purported that the experiential metafunction was one of the three main metafunctions. He later includes it within the ideational metafunction (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004), alongside the logical metafunction of relationships between clauses and clause-complexing. Thompson (2004), however, sees the latter as a fourth metafunction. As clause-complexing is beyond my scope, the focus will be on the experiential metafunction.

Also called Clause as Representation, the clause represents the ‘content’ of our experiences, answering the question ‘Who does what to whom’. This metafunction uses the grammatical system of transitivity. Although sharing the traditional view of transitivity that the focus is on the verb group (the Process), SFG refers to the system as describing the whole clause (Thompson, 2004) and does not use the labels ‘subject’, ‘verb’ and ‘object’, seeing that ‘verb’ is a word class, while ‘Subject’ is a functional term. Instead, different functional labels are given to Participants (realised by nominal groups), Processes (realised by verbal groups) and Circumstances (realised by prepositional phrases or adverbials signifying time, place or manner) of each process type.

Material process clauses refer to experiences of the external world and describe processes of doing and happening, answering the question ‘What did he/she do?’ or ‘What happened?’ (Butt et al, 2000). The distinction between participant types (Beneficiary, Goal, etc.) can alleviate students’ confusion as to which can be turned into a prepositional phrase and shifted to the end to be highlighted as newsworthy. Also, in the experiential metafunction, functional terms define the roles the Participants play in the Process, and Goals or Beneficiaries can take Subject position.

Material Process

Chia	bought	some curry	yesterday.
Actor	Process: material	Goal	circumstance
Nominal group	Verbal group	Nominal group	Adverbial group

Material process with Beneficiary

Chia	bought	Paul	some curry	yesterday.
Actor	Process: material	Beneficiary	Goal	circumstance
Nominal group	Verbal group	Nominal Group	Nominal group	Adverbial group

Material process with Beneficiary shifted to the end

Chia	bought	some curry	for Paul	yesterday.
Actor	Process: material	Goal	Beneficiary	circumstance
Nominal group	Verbal group	Nominal group	Nominal Group	Adverbial group

Agentless passive structure with Beneficiary as Subject

Paul	was        bought		some curry.
Beneficiary	Process: material		Goal
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Nominal group

Agentless passive structure with Goal as Subject

Some curry	was         bought		for Charles.
Goal	Process: material		Beneficiary
Subject	Finite	Predicator	Nominal group

Relational process types serve to identify and characterize, and are further subdivided into processes of ‘being’ (intensive or circumstantial) and ‘having’ (possessive). (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004).  Attribution specifies the class the Carrier belongs to, while identification narrows the class down to one.

Relational Process of intensive attribution

Emma	is	pretty.
Carrier	Process: Relational: intensive atrribution	Attribute
Nominal group	Verbal group	Nominal group with adjective as Head.

Relational Process of intensive identification with Value as Subject

Emma	is	the prettiest.
Value	Process: Relational: intensive identification	Token

Relational Process of intensive identification with Token as Subject

Emma	is	the leader.
Token	Process: Relational: intensive identification	Value

In ‘Emma is the prettiest one’, ‘Emma’ is the Value identified by the Token ‘the prettiest one’, since Emma is represented by the prettiest one. However, in ‘Emma is the leader’, ‘Emma’ represents the leader and is now the ‘Token’, identified by ‘the leader’ as the Value. Because of this structural distinction, we cannot combine the two and say, ‘Emma is the prettiest one and the leader’. (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004)

Below, are more examples of attribution and identification within other types of relational processes.

Relational Process of possessive attribution

Emma	has	a Wii console .
Carrier	Process: Relational: possessive attribution	Attribute

Relational Process of possessive identification

That Wii console	is	Emma’s.
Token/Possessed	Process: Relational: possessive identification	Value/Possessor

Relational Process of circumstantial attribution

The deadline	is	on Tuesday.
Carrier	Process: Relational: circumstantial attribution	Attribute

Relational Process of circumstantial identification

Tuesday	is	the deadline for the blogpost.
Token	Process: Relational: circumstantial identification	Value

Serving to construe processes of sensing, happenings within our consciousness, mental processes are subdivided into processes of emotion, perception, cognition, and desideration (ibid).

Mental process of emotion with nominal group as Phenomenon

David	liked	the headphones.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Emotion	Phenomenon

Mental process of perception with embedded clause as Phenomenon

David	saw	what happened.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Perception	Phenomenon

Mental process of cognition with projected clause

David	knew	he was getting headphones for Christmas.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Cognition	Projected Clause

Mental process of cognition with projected clause

David	hoped	that he would get headphones for Christmas.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Desideration	Projected clause

Notice that in mental processes of emotion and perception, what is loved or hated, seen or heard, is labelled Phenomenon, even when the fact is realised as an embedded clause. However, mental processes of cognition and desideration often bring wishes and ideas into existence by projecting a separate clause (Thompson, 2004).

Pairs such as ‘like/please’, which show a different direction in Sensor-Phenomenon relationships, are often unaccounted for in traditional grammar, but commonly occur in cognitive and emotive mental processes (ibid).

David	liked	the headphones.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Emotive	Phenomenon

The headphones	pleased	David
Phenomenon	Process: Mental: Emotive	Sensor

In ‘David liked the headphones’, ‘David’ is the Sensor of this emotive mental process which is denoted by the verb ‘liked’. ‘The headphones’ is the Phenomenon which summarises what is thought, perceived, or liked/disliked. Contrast that with ‘The headphones pleased David’, where the Subject is now the Phenomenon, and the Sensor, which is the conscious being, fills the interpersonal slot of Complement.  The example below shows that ‘realise’ is a ‘like’ type verb, while ‘occur to’ is similar to ‘please’. (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004)

David	realised	the fact that he was wrong.
Sensor	Process: Mental: Cognitive	Phenomenon

The fact that he was wrong	occurred to	David.
Phenomenon	Process: Mental: Cognitive	Sensor

Other process types

Between material and mental are behavioural processes, while existential processes are between relational and material. Verbal processes share the ability of mental processes to project what is said or thought in a separate clause. Some indirect-speech verbs, e.g. ‘urge’, ‘force’, which take  to-infinitives when projecting,  and direct-speech verbs like ‘whispered’, ‘sneered’ can convey illocutionary force (Bloor and Bloor, 2004).

Behavioural process

Joe	sang the song.
Behaver	Process: Behavioural

Existential process

There	was	a boy.
	Process: Existential	Existent

Verbal process projecting direct speech as separate clause

Alan	said,		“You	should read.”
Sayer	Process: Verbal
Quoting			Quoted
			Actor	Process: material

Verbal process projecting indirect speech as separate clause

Alan	said		you	should read.
Sayer	Process: Verbal
Reporting			Reported
			Actor	Process: material

Different process types have different tenses as their basic, unmarked, forms, e.g.  while the unmarked present tense for material processes is the present-in-present (the present progressive), that for relational and mental processes is the present simple. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) criticise EFL syllabuses for over-simplifying the teaching of the present simple as habitual behaviour without considering that this largely depends on process types. Another oversimplification is the famous pedagogic rule that state verbs cannot take the progressive tense. However, many verbs like ‘have’ can be either states or actions, which can be confusing for students. SFG’s separation into different processes (‘have a shower’ is material, while ‘have a pen’ is possessive attributive), which are governed by different sets of rules, explains the phenomenon to students more clearly, e.g. the present-in-present for relational and mental processes implies a highly-marked narrowing of the present, which tends to signify temporality e.g. ‘I hate burgers but I’m loving this one!’ (ibid).

Furthermore, different genres have the tendency of using certain process types more than others. A written recipe contains material processes, while a chef on a cooking programme might use a combination of material and relational processes (Thompson, 2004). Existential processes are often used in narratives to introduce new characters or scenes. A good understanding of the corresponding grammatical features of processes can help students use them in expressing their experiences of the world in the appropriate register, and define the syllabuses for students learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or Academic Purposes (EAP).

(Bibliography in Part 1)