Article In: Perspectives in Systemic Functional Linguistics: A celebration of the fiftieth international congress
Edited by Tom Bartlett
[Language, Context and Text 8:1] 2026

Learning how to hear

What can languages tell SFL?

 | Department of Linguistics University of Sydney
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Work across a range of languages over the past 50 years has taught us to be very cautious about the descriptions of English offered in the various editions of Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar — as we struggle to describe languages in their own terms. We have learned, sometimes too slowly, to make a clear distinction between SFL theory (i.e., axis, strata, rank, metafunction and our hierarchies of realisation, instantiation and individuation) and SFL informed description (of say tone, transitivity, mood, modality, deixis, epithesis and so on in one language or another) — the complementarity that Bernstein, Maton and others refer to as L1 (theory) vs L2 (description). But have we really listened carefully enough to languages as far as SFL theory is concerned? Has our work on English shaped SFL theory in ways that call into question aspects of our foundational theoretical cartography? Are we really hearing what languages are telling us? In this paper I’ll focus on enacting interpersonal meaning in Korean and Tagalog and reflect how the grammar of these languages has evolved to negotiate meaning in conversation. This work suggests that we need to treat the complementarity of theory (L1) and description (L2) as more of a cline than an opposition — setting up a robust workspace for ‘descriptive motifs and generalisations’ (an L1.5 ‘mediating language’ space in Maton’s terms) and being prepared to move ‘theory’ and ‘description’ around along this cline in order to better hear what languages are telling us about how they mean.
Article outline
  • 1.Functional language typology
  • 2.Report: Curating SFL language description
  • 3.Procedure — Operationalising SFL language description
  • 4.Protocol — the wisdom of our elders
    • 4.1Korean mood
    • 4.2Tagalog mood
  • 5.Knowledge structure
  • 6.Generations
  • 7.Retrospect and prospect
  • Notes
  • Author queries
  • References
References (66)
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