I appreciate Judy's suggestions on sources on systemic-functional grammar.

Judy Diamondstone wrote:

> useful introductions to Hallidayan grammar for educational purposes include:
> Geoff Thompson, 1996, Introducing Functional Grammar,. pub: Arnold (recently
> revised I think)

> Butt, Fahey, Spinks, Yallop (1997) Using Functional Grammar: An Explorer's
> Guide (NCELTR -- a publ. co. in the US distributes it...)

Judy is right that part of the resistance to SFG in the states is to do a very
different
orientation to the study of language.


> Many Europeans are apparently conversant in multiple linguistic theories (and
> languages for
> that matter) and value SFL. Here in the states, perhaps because of the
> strong formalist tradition, but also for reasons I don't fully understand,
> there is so little knowledge and interest in SFL generally speaking that
> it's hard to mine it for USEFUL purposes. Many brilliant insights into
> language are available from the literature, though.

It is, of course, one thing to claim that people reject a particular orientation to
language for completely irrelevant reasons, but another to provide concrete
examples from the orientation which demonstrates its usefulness.  I can cite a
number of claims in texts that SFG is really useful for teaching about language,
but none of these claims are supported by concrete examples.

I have tried to understand the descriptive apparatus of SFG.  Thompson, one
of the books Judy recommends (I do not have the revised version), has a chapter on
how language represents to the world (Chapter 5).  One of the ways that is done is
by transitivity which can be further subdivided into various process (material,
mental, and relational).  Under mental process, Thompson provides the following
sets of sentences. (See page 80.)

He has been shaving.
The young girl bounded out of the gate.
Edward was sawing the wood.
Her mother smashed the glass.

The car slithered off the road.
Coarse grass was growing.
The unhappiness disappeared.

The fire had destroyed everything.
Scores of tiny brambles scratched him.
The pounding rhythm shook walls and floors.

The first set of sentences has animate subjects and the last two have inanimate or
abstract subjects.  There is no explanation of the fact that these verbs, which
represent the notion of material process, do so through a wide array of verb
structures.  The first grouping, for example, has an intransitive verb with a zero
complement, an intransitive verb with an adverbial complement, and two transitive
verbs.

This is a very strange set of verbs if, to Halliday's words, formal structures are
“organic configurations of functions” or “[every grammatical structure] can be
explained, ultimately, by reference to how language is used.”  (See his
Introduction to Functional Grammar 2nd edition, pages xiii-xiv.)   Given Halliday's
underlying assumptions of SFG, it is perplexing that material process should have
such a diverse set of verbs.

I don't find the category of material process as a way to classify verbs
particularly brilliant.  I do not know how this category would be useful for
students to understand grammar let alone discuss the choices they make in composing
a text.  Perhaps, I have not had the right classroom task where students need this
category to classify verbs.

Perhaps, there are other insights from systemic functional grammar that are more
insightful than the category of material process verbs.  I sure would like to know
just one.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University

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