Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P.

– A Grammar of the English language

3.3. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

3.3.1. Speech-act theory

The Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin (19111960) was the first to draw
attention to the many functions performed by utterances as part of
interpersonal communication.
Austin points out that there are many declarative sentences which do not
describe, report, or state anything, and of which it makes no sense to ask
whether they are true or false. The utterance of such sentences is, or is part of,
the doing of some action - an action which would not normally be described
as simply saying something. Austin gives a number of examples: I do, as
uttered as part of a marriage ceremony; I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth,
as uttered by the appropriate person while smashing a bottle against the stem
of the ship in question; I give and bequeath my watch to my brother, as
written in a will; I bet you sixpence it will rain tomorrow.
To utter such sentences in the appropriate circumstances is not to
describe what you are doing: it is doing it, or part of doing it, and Austin calls
such utterances performatives or performative utterances, distinguishing
them from constatives or constative utterances which are used to state a fact
or describe a state of affairs. Only constatives can be true or false;
performatives are happy or unhappy.
In speech act analysis, we study the effect of utterances on the behavior
of speaker and hearer, using a threefold distinction. First, we recognize the
bare fact that a communicative act takes place: the locutionary act. Secondly,
we look at the act that is performed as a result of the speaker making an
utterance - the cases where ''saying = doing'', such as betting, promising,
welcoming, and warning: these, known as illocutionary acts, are the core of
any theory of speech acts. Thirdly, we look at the particular effect the
speaker's utterance has on the listener, who may feel amused, persuaded,
warned, etc., as a consequence: the bringing about of such effects is known as
a perlocutionary act. It is important to appreciate that the illocutionary force
of an utterance and its perlocutionary effect may not coincide. If we warn you
against a particular course of action, you may or may not heed our warning.
Some speech acts directly address a listener, but the majority of acts in
everyday conversation are indirect. For example, there are a very large
number of ways of asking someone to perform an action. The most direct way
is to use the imperative construction (Shut the door), but it is easy to sense

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that this would be inappropriate in many everyday situations. Alternatives

stress such factors as the hearer's ability or desire to perform the action, or the
speaker's reasons for having the action done. These include the following:

I'd be grateful if you'd shut the door.

Could you shut the door?
Would you mind shutting the door?
It'd help to have the door shut.
It's getting cold in here.
Shall we keep out the draught?
Now, Jane, what have you forgotten to do?
Brrr!
Any of these could, in the right situation, function as a request for
action, despite the fact that none has the clear form of an imperative. But of
course, it is always open to the hearer to misunderstand an indirect request -
either accidentally or deliberately. For instance,

Teacher: Johnny, there's some chalk on the floor.

Johnny: Yes, there is, sir.
Teacher: Well, pick it up, then!

3.3.2. Functional Grammar

Several approaches look for alternatives to an abstract, formal approach
to grammar. This particular theory adopts a pragmatic view of language as
social interaction, and sets up 'functional' units of a pragmatic and syntactic
kind within sentence structure. The notion of function here is treated as
central, especially to show grammar communicating meaning in social
interaction.
The following brief discussion will concentrate on functional grammar
as developed by M.A.K. Halliday.
Halliday defines a functional grammar as „essentially a “natural”
grammar, in the sense that everything in it can be explained, ultimately, by
reference to how language is used‟ - the focus here is on language use.
Halliday's functional grammar is not a formal grammar; indeed, he opposes
the term ''functional'' to the term ''formal''. This grammar begins from the

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premise that language has certain functions for its users as a social group, of
which the two major functions or meta-functions are the ideational
"content" function and the interpersonal function; language is a means of
reflecting on things, and a means of acting on things - though the only things
it is possible to act on by means of a symbolic system such as language are
humans (and some animals). Both meta-functions rely on a third, the textual
function (by text, Halliday means ''everything that is said or written''), which
enables the other two to be realized, and which ensures that the language used
is relevant. The textual function represents the language user‟s text forming
potential.
Halliday's systemic theory, which underlies his functional grammar, ''is a
theory of meaning as choice'', and for Halliday, grammar is always seen as
meaningful:
‘A language...... is a system for making meanings: a semantic
system, with other systems for encoding the meanings it produces. The
term ''semantics'' does not simply refer to the meanings of words; it is
the entire system of meanings of a language, expressed by grammar as
well as by vocabulary. In fact the meanings are encoded in ''wordings'':
grammatical sequences, or ''syntagms'', consisting of items of both
kinds - lexical items such as most verbs and nouns, grammatical items
like the and of and if, as well as those of an in-between type such as
prepositions.’
Halliday, M.A.K. (1985), An introduction to Functional
Grammar, London, Edward Arnold, p.17.

The ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions are therefore

functional components of the semantic system that is language. The grammar
enables all three of them to come into play at every point of every text: it
receives meanings from each component and splices them together in the
wordings, as Halliday shows through his analysis of the clause in English.
The clause is chosen because it is the grammatical unit in which 'three distinct
structures, each expressing one kind of semantic organization, are mapped
onto one another to produce a single wording' (1985, p. 38; and p. 53):
Ideational meaning is the representation of experience: our
experience of the world that lies about us, and also inside us, the world of
our imagination. It is meaning in the sense of 'content'. The ideational
function of the clause is that of representing what in the broadest sense
we can call 'processes': actions, events, processes of consciousness, and
relations....

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Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P. – A Grammar of the English language

Interpersonal meaning is meaning as a form of action: the speaker

or writer doing something to the listener or reader by means of language.
The interpersonal function of the clause is that of exchanging roles in
rhetorical interaction: statements, questions, offers and commands,
together with accompanying modalities....
Textual meaning is relevance to the context: both the preceding (and
following) text, and the context of situation. The textual function of the
clause is that of constructing a message.

The message is constructed in the English clause in terms of theme and

rheme. One element of the clause is given the special status of theme by
being put first, and it then combines with the rest of the clause to constitute
the message. The theme is defined as ''the element which serves as the point
of departure of the message; it is that with which the clause is concerned'', and
the rest of the message is referred to as the rheme; the theme is normally
realized by nominal groups, or prepositional phrases:
(a) Tomas gave Sophie that Easter egg
(b) That Easter egg was given to Sophie by Tomas
(c) Sophie was given that Easter egg by Tomas
(d) At Easter Tomas went to see Sophie and Katie
(e) Very soon they were eating Easter eggs
(The underlined is the theme; the rest is the rheme.)

Themes may also be realized by clauses, as in the case of:

What Tomas gave to Sophie was an Easter egg.

However, in this case the clause what Tomas gave to Sophie functions as
a nominal group in the whole clause; this phenomenon is referred to as
nominalization. It is also possible to have cases of predicated theme having
the form it + be, as in:
It was an Easter egg that Tomas gave to Sophie.
The most usual themes in English are those realized by the grammatical
subject of the clause, and these are called unmarked themes; when the theme
is something other than the subject, it is called marked theme, as in (d) and
(e) above.

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In its interpersonal function, as an interactive event, an exchange

between speakers, the clause in English is organized in terms of mood. Mood
is the relationship between the grammatical subject of the clause and the finite
element of the verbal group, with the remainder of the clause called the
residue. So nay indicative clause - a clause which has a subject and a finite
element will have a mood structure. Subject and finite together make up the
proposition of the clause, the part that can be affirmed, denied, questioned,
and negotiated by speakers in other ways (wished about, hoped for,
demanded, etc.). The grammatical subject of a declarative clause is
recognizable as that element which is picked up in the pronoun of a tag
(1985, p. 73):

So in order to locate the Subject, add a tag (if one is not already
present) and see which element is taken up. For example, that teapot
was given to your aunt: here the tag would be wasn't it?, we cannot
add wasn't she?. On the other hand with that teapot your aunt got
from the duke the tag would be didn't she?, we cannot say didn't he?
or wasn't it?

It is that by reference to which the proposition is affirmed, denied, etc.

The finite element further enhances the proposition as something to negotiate
by
(1) giving it a primary tense (past, present, future) and
(2) a modality, an indication of the speaker's attitude in terms of
certainty and obligation to what she or he is saying.

The clause residue consists of three kinds of functional element: one

(and only one) predicator, one or two complements and up to about seven
adjuncts. The predicator is what there is of the verbal group in addition to the
finite - if there is one; some clauses, known as non-finite clauses, have only a
predicator. The complement is anything that could have functioned as the
subject in the clause, but which does not, including, thus, nominal groups
realizing what other grammarians tend to refer to as direct and indirect
objects, and also what Halliday refers to as attributive complement: for
instance, a famous politician in Dick Whittington became a famous politician.
The adjunct(s) include those elements which do not have the potential of
being used as subjects.

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Le, H.T., Dang, D.T., & Tran, H.P. – A Grammar of the English language

Halliday (1985) further explores grammatical functions above, below,

and beyond the clause. Halliday relates both his grammatical theory and his
theory of first-language acquisition to an account of how language relates to
the world in which it is used, thus producing one of the most comprehensive
theories of language as a social phenomenon.

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