M. A. K. Halliday, Jonathan J. Webster) On Grammar

 

On Grammer

 M. A. K. Halliday

Continuum

 

On Grammar

 

Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday

Volume 1:  On Volume 2:  Linguistic Volume 3:  On

Grammar 

Studies of Text and Discourse 

Language and Linguistics

Volume 4:  The

Language of Early Childhood  Volume 5:  The Language of Science 

Volume 6:  Computational

and Quantitative Studies

Volume 7:  Studies

in English Language 

Volume 8:  Studies

in Chinese Language 

Volume 9:  Language

and Education

Volume 10:  Language

and Society

 

Volume 1 in the Collected Works of M. A. K. Halliday

On Grammar

M. A. K. Halliday

Edited by Jonathan Webster

 

Continuum The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London, SE1 7NX 370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6503 First published 2002 by Continuum Reprinted 2003, 2005

 M. A. K. Halliday 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Briti sh Library Library CataloguingCataloguing-in-Pu in-Public blication ation Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-8264-4944-1 (hardback) Typeset by SetSystems Ltd, Saffron Walden, Essex Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Bath

 

CONTENTS

Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

Introduction: a personal perspective Professor M. A. K. Halliday

1

S ECTION ONE:   EARLY PAP APER ERS S

ON

BASIC CONCEPTS

Editor’s Introduction 1 Some aspects aspects of systematic systematic description description and comparison in grammatical analysis

17 21

2 Categories of the theory of grammar

37

3 Class Class in relation relation to the axes axes of chain chain and choice in language

95

4 Some notes on ‘deep’ grammar

106

5 The concept of rank: a reply

118

Appendix to Section One

127

S ECTION TWO:   WORD– CLAUSE– T EXT

Editor’s Introduction

155

6 Lexis as a linguistic level

158

7 Lang Langua uage ge st stru ruct ctu ure and lang langua uage ge func functi tion on

173

 

contents

8 Modes Modes of meanin meaning g and modes of expressio expression: n: types of grammatical structure and their  determi det erminat nation ion by differ different ent semanti semanticc funct function ionss

196

9 Text Text semantics semantics and and clause clause grammar grammar:: how is a text like a clause?

219

10 Dime Dimens nsio ions ns of disc discou ours rsee anal analys ysis is:: gram gramma marr

261 261

ONST STRUI RUING NG AN AND D  ENACTING S ECTION THREE:   CON

Editor’s Introduction

289

11 On the the inef ineffa fabi bili lity ty of gram gramma mati tica call cate catego gori ries es

291 291

12 Spoken and written modes of meaning

323

13 How do you mean?

352

14 Grammar Grammar and daily life: concurren concurrence ce and complementarity 15 On grammar and grammatics

384

Bibliography

419

Index

433

vi

 

369

PREFACE

For nea For nearl rly y half half a cent centu ury, ry, Prof Profes esso sorr M. A. K. Hall Hallid idaay has has been been enri en rich chin ing g the the disc discip ipli line ne of li ling ngui uisti stics cs with with his his keen keen insi insigh ghtt into into this this soci so cial al semio semioti ticc phen phenom omen enon on we call call lang langua uage ge.. His His sc scho hola larsh rship ip has has advanced our understanding of language as an activity which is both ration rat ional al and relatio relational nal,, system systemic ic and semant semantic, ic, dynami dynamicc and diverse diverse.. Building on the legacy of his mentor, Professor J. R. Firth, Halliday approaches language from the vantage point of meaning and purpose, and provides a sound theoretical framework for dealing with questions about howwho and we why we come to use language as we do for being and becoming are. Halliday’s work has long attracted a wide audience, which includes linguists, educators, computer scientists and policy makers. What many find appealing in the man and his scholarship is his rejection, on the one hand, of the elitism typical of certain other schools of linguistics, while on the other hand embracing the study of that which powers language and also conditions our ways of thinking and behaving. In this series, we present the collected works of Professor M. A. K. Halliday in ten volumes. Covering a wide range of topics related to language and linguistics, these are: 1   On Grammar  2  Linguistic Studies of Text and Discourse  3  On Language and Linguistics 4  The Language of Early Childhood  5  The Language of Science  6  Computational and Quantitative Studies 7  Studies in English Language 

vii

 

preface

8  Studies in Chinese Language  9  Language and Education 10  Language and Society Hallid Hall iday ay appr approa oach ches es la lang ngua uage ge from from abov above, e, from from belo below w and and fr from om roundabout (see Chapter 15, Section 15), but not from a distance. His collected works, as presented in these ten volumes, reflect his characteristi ter isticc balanc balancee betwee between n formula formulatin ting g and applyi applying ng lingui linguisti sticc theory theory.. The depth of his insight into language as system is highlighted in such volu vo lume mess as the the pres presen entt one one   On Gramma Grammar  r    and and the the thir third d volu volume me   On Language and Linguistics. Linguistics. The strength of his commitment to the study of language as it is actually used is demonstrated in subsequent volumes dealin dea ling g with with   Lingu Linguis isti ticc Stud Studie iess of Text Text and and Disco Discour urse  se ,   The Lang Langua uage ge of    Early Childhood   and The and  The Language of Science . The breadth of Halliday’s interest in all things Language is glimpsed in the volumes   Studies in English Language  Language   and Studies and  Studies in Chinese Language . The application of his knowledge and experience as linguist and social scientist is visited in volumes  Computational and Quantitative Studies, Studies,  Language and Education and Language and  Language and Society. Society. The first volume contains fifteen papers, with the addition of a new pi piec ecee his enti entitl tled ed perspective ‘A perso persona nallonpers pelanguage rspec pecti tive ve’, ’, inlinguistic whic which h Profes Pro fesso soras r Hall Ha llid iday ay offers own and theory covered in his his coll collec ecte ted d work works. s. The The pape papers rs are are divi divide ded d into into thre threee sect sectio ions ns acco ac cordi rding ng to topi topic, c, and and withi within n each each sect sectio ion n the the pape papers rs are are order ordered ed acco ccordin rding g to the the date date they they were were writ writte ten n (wh (whic ich h does does not not alwa lways correspond to the date of publication). The first section presents early  category,,   structure ,  class  class   and papers (1957–66) on basic concepts such as  category rank. Interestingly, rank.  Interestingly, the second section highlights how over the span of  two decade decadess (mid-1 (mid-1960 960ss to mid-19 mid-1980s 80s)) Hallid Halliday ay develop developed ed systemi systemicc theory to account for linguistic phenomena extending upward through

the ranks from word to clause to text. The third section includes more recent work in which Halliday discusses the issues confronting those who would study linguistics, or as Firth described it ‘language turned back on itself’.

viii

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to the original publishers for permission to reprint the arti ar ticl cles es and and chap chapte ters rs in this this volu volume me.. Orig Origin inal al publ public icat atio ion n deta detail ilss are are provided below, and also at the beginning of each chapter. ‘Some aspects of systemic description and comparison in grammatical analys ana lysis’ is’ from   Studi Studies es in Ling Lingui uist stic ic Anal Analys ysis is, publ publis ishe hed d by Blac Blackw kwel elll Publishers, 1957, pages 54–67. Reprinted by permission of Blackwell Publishers.

‘Categories of the theory of grammar’ from  Word , 17(3), 1961, published by the Linguistic Circle of New York (now the International Linguistic Association), pages 241–92. Reprinted by permission of the author and the International Linguistic Association. ‘Class in relation to the axes of chain and choice in language’ from Linguistics, vol. 2, 1963, published by Mouton (now Mouton de Gruyter), pages 5–15. Reprinted by permission of Mouton de Gruyter. ‘Some notes on ‘deep’ grammar’ from  Journal of Linguistics  2(1), 1966, published by Cambridge University Press, pages 57–67. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. ‘The concept of rank: a reply’ from   Journal of Linguistics   2(1), 1966, published by Cambridge University Press, pages 110–18. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press. ‘Lexis as a linguistic level’ from  In Memory of J. R. Firth, published by Longman, 1966, pages 148–62. Edited by C. E. Bazell, J. C. Catford, M. A. K. Halliday and R. H. Robins. ‘Langu ‘Lan guag agee struc structu ture re and and lang langua uage ge func functi tion on’’ from from   New New Hori Horizo zons ns in Linguistics, published by Penguin Ltd, 1970, pages 140–65. Edited by  John Lyons.      M. A. K. Halliday, 1971, collection      John Lyons, 1970. Reprinted by permission of the Penguin Group (UK). ix

 

acknowledgements

‘Modes ‘Mod es of mean meanin ing g and and mode modess of expr expres essi sion on:: type typess of gram gramma mati tica call structure and their determination by different semantic functions’ from Funct Fu nctio ion n and and Cont Contex extt in Ling Linguis uisti ticc Anal Analys ysis: is: Essay Essayss Offe Offere redd to Will Willia iam m Haas,, edited by D. J. Allerton, Edward Carney and David Holdcroft, Haas published by Cambri rid dge Universi sitty Pres ress, 1979, pages 57–79. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.

Text semantics and clause grammar: some patterns of realization from The Seventh LACUS Forum, Forum, edited by James E. Copeland and Philip W. Davies, published by LACUS, 1981, pages 31–59. Reprinted by permission of LACUS. ‘How is a text like a clause?’ from   Text Processing: Text Analysis and  Generation, Text Typology and Attrition (Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 51),, edited by Sture Allen, published by Almqvist and Wiksell Inter51) nati na tion onal al,, 1982 1982,, page pagess 209– 209– 47. 47. Repri Reprint nted ed by perm permis issi sion on of Almq Almqvi vist st and Wiksell International. ‘Dimen ‘Dim ensi sion onss of disc discou ourse rse anal analys ysis is:: gramma grammar’ r’ from from   The The Hand Handbo book ok of    Discour Disc ourse se Analys Analysis, is, Vol. Vol. 2: Dimens Dimension ionss of Discou Discourse  rse , published by Academic Press Inc., 1985, pages 29–56. ‘On the ineffability of grammatical categories’ from The from  The Tenth LACUS  Forum,, edit Forum edited ed by Alan Alan Mann Mannin ing, g, Pier Pierre re Mart Martin in and and Kim Kim McCa McCall lla, a, published by LACUS, 1984, pages 3–18. Reprinted by permission of  LACUS. ‘Spoken and written modes of meaning’ from Comprehending from  Comprehending Oral and  Written Language , published by Academic Press Inc., 1987, pages 55–82. Reprinted by permission of Academic Press, Orlando, Florida. ‘How do you mean?’ from Advances from  Advances in System Systemic ic Linguistics: Linguistics: Recent Theory Theory and Practice , edited by Martin Davies and Louise Ravelli, published by Pinter, 1992, pages 20–35. ‘Gra ‘G ramm mmar arApproaches and and dail daily yto life: lif e: conc concur urre renc ncee and and andCognition, comp complem lemen enta tari rity ty’ fr from om Functional Language, Culture Cognition , edited by’ Teun A. van Dijk, published by John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2000, pages 221–37. Reprinted by permission of John Benjamins Publishing Co. ‘On grammar and grammatics’ from  Functional Descriptions: Theory in Practice , edited by Ruqaiya Hasan, Carmel Cloran and David G. Butt, publ pu blis ishe hed d by John John Benj Benjam amin inss Publ Publis ishi hing ng Co., Co., 1996 1996,, page pagess 1–38. 1–38. Reprinted by permission of John Benjamins Publishing Co.

x

 

INTRODUCTION: A P ERSONAL  P ERSPECTIVE

The volumes in this series will contain a selection of my writings on language, extending over the half century beginning in 1951. A few, including one or two items written specially for the series, have not been published before, and many of those that were published appeared in rather inaccessible places. Thee pape Th papers rs are are arra arrang nged ed acco accord rdin ing g to topi topic, c, begi beginn nnin ing g with with the the present volume, which is oriented towards grammatical theory. But the topi to pica call arra arrang ngem emen entt will will tend tend to be fair fairly ly loos loose, e, part partly ly beca becaus usee my writing has always been inclined to drift, and partly because both the editor and I prefer it to be that way – weak boundaries have always been characteristic of my approach. I have never really thriven in a discipline-based structure of knowledge. It was a feature of my century – the late and rather unlamented twentieth, perhaps mercifully short in Eric Hobsbawm’s conception of  it – that it began by erecting walls between the disciplines, and it is proving difficult to than demolish theseThey walls had nowbeen that enabling they havetocome to be constraining rather enabling. start with, at least for the newly founded social (and ever newer semiotic) sciences; sociologists, psychologists and linguists had to be able to lock each other  out while sorting out and investigating their own chartered domains.

So in the mid-century many linguists sturdily proclaimed the independence and autonomy of the discipline of linguistics, and one could symp sy mpat athi hize ze with with thei theirr anxi anxiet ety, y, beca becaus usee lang langua uage ge was was ever everyb ybod ody’ y’ss busi bu sine ness ss and ther theree woul would d alwa always ys be outs outsid ider erss loo looking king over over thei their  r  shoulders and telling them how to do their job – or, more usually, telling them they were simply wasting their time. I think I myself once made some reference to this; if so, it will turn up in Volume 3. But 1

 

o n g r am am m a ar r

what I did stress was how much linguistics had in common with other  schola scho larl rly y purs pursui uits ts and, and, when when it came came to aski sking ques questi tio ons about bout language, I always found myself lining up with the outsiders. It seemed fine for us, as linguists, to determine the content or domain of our  own discipline – sociologists studied society, psychologists studied . . . what wh atev ever er psyc psycho holo logi gists sts do study, study, li ling ngui uists sts studi studied ed lang langua uage ge.. That’s what we were there for. But it did not seem fine, to me at least, for us to determine what questions should be asked about that domain. I was inte in tere rest sted ed in what what othe otherr peop people le want wanted ed to know know abou aboutt lang langua uage ge,, whether scholars in other fields or those with practical problems to be fa face ced d and and solve solved d – incl includ udin ing g that that unde underva rvalu lued ed and and unde underr-re rewa ward rded ed grou gr oup p who who have have to be both both sc scho hola lars rs and and prac practi tica call prob proble lemm-so solve lvers rs,, namely teachers. There was nothing surprising about this last perspective: not only had my parents both been teachers, but I myself had taught languages for thirteen years before transferring myself into a teacher of linguistics. But even before that, while still at school, I had been trying to find out abou ab outt lang langua uage ge – bec because ause I was was keen keen on lite litera ratu ture re and and wan wanted ted to 1

understand why its language was so effective, what was special about it it.. There There is no sepa separa rati ting ng one’ one’ss pers person onal al hist histor ory y fr from om the the acad academ emic ic path pa thss one one purs pursu ues, es, nor nor any any way way of deta detacching hing caus causee fr from om ef effe fect ct in expl ex plai aini ning ng one’ one’ss chos chosen en appr approa oach ch to a field field of st stud udy. y. One One way way or 

another, I have always found myself asking the kinds of questions about language that arose, as it were, from outside language itself. Of course linguists always have been located, and located themselves, within some broader context; there is nothing unusual about that. But at any given “moment” in space-time, there are likely to be only a few predominant motifs by which the context of linguistic scholarship is defin de fined ed.. This This may may even even be le legi gisl slat ated ed fr from om on high high,, as when when Stal Stalin in writing in 1950 (or Chikobava, writing on his behalf) instructed Soviet linguists to get on with the job of demonstrating the linguistic unity of  the Slav nations – reasonably enough, since the Soviet Union had just taken them all over. Usually it is determined by less overtly political fa fact ctor ors: s: by part partic icul ular ar soci social al move moveme ment ntss and and dema demand nds, s, or nota notabl blee advances in knowledge in some other field. The1985 present erahas provides a noteworthy example of the latter. Since about there been spectacular progress in the field of neuroscie sc ienc nce; e; the the comb combin inat atio ion n of new new tech techno nolo logy gy – posi positr tron on-e -emi miss ssio ion n tomo to mogr grap aphy hy,, magn magneti eticc reson resonan ance ce imag imagin ing g and and it itss deri deriva vati tive vess – with with new insights in evolutionary theory and its contributing disciplines has tr tran ansf sfor orme med d the the way way we unde unders rsta tand nd the the huma human n bra brain, in, how how it has has 2

 

a personal personal perspectiv perspective e

evolved in the species and how it develops in the individual from birth (and (and befo before re)) to matu maturi rity ty.. And And this this new new unde underst rstan andi ding ng has has radi radica cally lly redefined the place of language. It is now clear that language and the brain evolve together, and that these develop together in infancy and childhood. The development of the brain is the development of the ability to mean; as in every aspect of human history, so in the ontogeny of the the indi indivi vidu dual al huma human n bein being g the the mate materi rial al and and the the semio semioti ticc inte interrpenetrate, as complementa penetrate, complementary ry aspects aspects of the characterol characterology ogy of the species (McCrone; Edelman; Deacon; Dawkins; Jones). To say this is not to proclaim that the human species is unique in this respect or that no other species has evolved, or could evolve, a

similar type of higher-order semiotic. On the contrary. The work of  Duane Rumbaugh and Susan Savage-Rumbaugh has brought out the point that the bonobo chimpanzees can operate with sets of arbitrary symb sy mbol olss in a way way that that is ana analogo logous us to our our own syst system em of word wordin ing g (lexicogrammar). They lack an analogous vocal apparatus, but that is beside the point. It is tempting to assume that they have been following the same evolutionary path and are simply less far advanced along the way – this is the assumption that prompts questions like ‘what age have they th ey reac reache hed, d, in term termss of a huma human n chil child? d?’’ But this this assu assump mpti tion on is probably wrong, or at least misleading, if it is used to describe an adult chimpanzee in terms of an immature human; the adult bonobo’s brain is fully wired up in terms of the construing of experience, and enacting of social relations, that constitute bonobo culture. The question can fairly be asked about bonobos brought up from birth in a human-like semiotic environment, like Kanzi, and it is too early to say yet whether  Kanzi and the other youngsters’ development of the power of meaning tr trac acke ked d that that of human uman child hildre ren n and and st stop oppe ped d at a certa ertain in le leve vell or  whether it was proceeding along a somewhat different route. It might be argued that such new knowledge about how the brain functions, and how it evolves and develops, has no significance for the way lingui linguists sts descri describe be and explai explain n langua language, ge, especia especially lly at the ‘inner ‘inner’’ strata of lexicogrammar and phonology (wording and sounding). Possibly; although even here it seems to me to set certain constraints and more importantly perhaps to favour certain explanations over others. It suggests “systems thinking” rather than compositional thinking (Matthiesse thi essen), n), gramma grammatic tical al logic logic rather rather than than formal formal logic logic (Sugen (Sugeno o 1995), 1995), fuzz fu zzy y and and prob probab abil ilis isti ticc cate catego gori ries es ra rath ther er than than cl clea earl rly y boun bounded ded and and deterministic ones. Since the brain is more like a jungle than like a computer compu ter (Edelman (Edelman 1992), 1992), it disfavours disfavours representati representations ons of grammar grammar and phonology that are influenced, however indirectly or subconsciously, 3

 

o n g r am am m a ar r

by the way that computers happen to be being designed and operated at this particular moment in technological history. But there are two aspects of the work of linguists that surely are impacted directly by any new understanding of the brain. One is that of branches special fields within linguistics that closely to those neur neuros osci cien ence ce:: or deve develo lopm pmen enta tall li ling ngui uisti stics cs (t (the he st stud udy y relate of “l “lan angu guag agee acqu ac quis isit itio ion” n”), ), and and path pathol olog ogic ical al and and cl clin inic ical al ling lingui uist stic icss (t (the he st stud udy y of  lang langua uage ge diso disord rder erss of all all kind kinds) s).. Both Both of thes thesee field fieldss have have imme immens nsee “practical” applications, in education and in medicine, that contribute to human well-being. I have not worked in the latter area. But I have writt wri tten en a cert certai ain n amou amount nt on chil child d la lang ngua uage ge devel develop opme ment nt,, based based on intensive research of the ‘diary’ type (Bates, in Rumbaugh and Rumbaug ba ugh) h) and and it was was clea clearr alre alread ady y when when I st star arte ted d that that this this must must have have mutual implications with the study of the brain. This was in the early 1970s, before the explosion of knowledge in neuroscience; I was not able to make any sensible use of what little I had read then about brain functioning. I simply drew attention to two factors that had emerged very clearly from my own researches: first, that the language surrounding in g a chil child d was was ri rich ch and and high highly ly st stru ruct ctur ured ed,, very very diff differ eren entt fr from om the the formless and impoverished quality that was being asserted about spoken language at the time; secondly, that before mother tongue came child tongue (I called it “protolanguage”), which had a different structure fr from om “adu “adult lt” ” (pos (postt-in infa fanc ncy) y) lang langua uage ge – so if chil childr dren en were were born born endowed with a grammar-shapen brain, why did they first construct a language of quite a different type, which had no grammar in it at all? Today matters have changed, and students of child language development can hardly avoid taking note of what has been found out about the development of the infant brain. The other aspect of the work work of lin linguists that is impacted by neur ne uros osci cien ence ce is a more more macr macro o one: one: the the mode modell llin ing g of the the syst system em of  2

language as a whole. The overall construction of language as system wass very wa very much much part part of the the ente enterp rpri rise se of twent twentie ieth th-c -cen entu tury ry ling lingui uist stss fr from om Saus Saussu sure re onwa onward rdss and and reac reache hed d a high high poin pointt with with Hjel Hjelms msle lev’ v’ss Prolegomena   (196 (1961) 1),, first first writ writte ten n in 1942 1942.. Sinc Sincee then then it has has beco become me backgrounded, for various reasons: the subject expanded into a colony of subdisciplines, or branches, which seemed not to need any general perspective; in the west, at least, including the USA where most of the research was being done, Chomsky’s post-Bloomfieldian model became

dominant and was not open to challenge; and the general post-modern ethos was in any case hostile to comprehensive accounts (they were seen as “totalizing”), often in fact to theorizing of any kind. 4

 

a personal personal perspectiv perspective e

An exceptional figure in this period was Sydney Lamb, who took over Hjelmslev’s vision and continually revised and refined it in the light of his own thinking and his own research. Lamb set out quite explicitly to model language in terms of neural structure and neural processes and, having been ignored or rejected by mainstream linguists for many decades, he has now come into his own. His  Pathways of the  Brain   is a major work of linguistic scholarship that is fully compatible with the new thinking in neuroscience. It also brings out how essential it is to model the linguistic system as a whole if linguistics is to be ta take ken n seri seriou ousl sly y amon among g the the scie scienc nces es rath rather er than than bein being g set set asid asidee as a somewhat somewh at eccentric eccentric pastime for grammarians grammarians and philosophers philosophers of mind. Since my own thinking is in many ways close to that of Sydney Lamb, and we collaborated for some time in the 1960s, this is perhaps a good point of departure for the next step in the argument. By talking about the intellectual environment in which the study of language is pursued, I have foregrounded the context of neuroscience because that is where major advances have recently been made. But linguistics has many frontiers. If we express these in disciplinary terms, they would includ inc ludee sociol sociology ogy,, anthro anthropol pology ogy,, legal legal studie studies, s, psychol psychology ogy,, histor history, y, politics, literature, fine art and music, computer science and physics, as well as education, medicine and biology, already mentioned. Put like that, they amount to a dull and rather forbidding catalogue; so let me make the same point in more concrete and friendly terms. Once having begotten language, as a species, and as individuals, we are stuck with it; we can’t get rid of it, and we can’t do anything without it. Language and the brain are co-created; they can also be co-

damage dama ged, d, and and co-d co-des estr troy oyed ed.. A part partic icul ular ar part part of lang langua uage ge – say say it itss vocabulary – can grow up with a particular part of the brain, but it can be dislodged and migrate to somewhere else. And whenever we process language, every region of the brain is involved. The same holds good, by anal analog ogy, y, for for lang langua uage ge and and soci societ ety: y: lang langua uage ge crea create tess soci societ ety, y, by enacting social relationships and, by the same token, language disrupts and destroys. A particular language co-evolves with a particular culture, butt anot bu anothe herr lang langua uage ge can can come come alon along g and and usur usurp p it itss plac place, e, and and the the culture survives. And whenever we use our language, all aspects of the culture are invoked. Language creates and maintains the law; it also functions to challenge and to subvert it. Human history is the interplay of material and linguistic forces, enabling and constraining, colluding and conflicting by turns. Literature attempts to transcend language, but hass to use ha use lan languag guagee to do it (“re (“read adin ing g betw betwee een n the the line lines” s” is st stil illl reading). Visual art, music and dance are independent of language –  5

 

o n g r am am m a ar r

but you have to know language in order to understand them. Computers are built to a logic derived by design from grammar; they will have to think grammatically if they are going to advance any further. And An d whil whilee lang langua uage ge is subj subjec ect, t, li like ke ever everyt ythi hing ng el else se,, to the the laws laws of  physics, the laws of physics are themselves construed in language in a specially designed form known as mathematics, which evolved as the language of measurement. The brain, in other words, is only one of many phenomena that can servee as the serv the poin pointt of vant vantag agee fr from om whic which h lan languag guagee is view viewed ed and explained. It is one that happens to be particularly favourable just at present, because of the success in brain science. But any other perspective – literary, social, physical, logico-philosophical or whatever – is equally valid and language will look somewhat different from each of  these different vantage points. Some will obviously be more relevant than th an othe others rs for for part partic icul ular ar resea researc rch h appl applic icat atio ions ns:: an audi audiol olog ogis ist, t, for  for 

example, looks at language as a physical system (i.e. system-&-process), taking account of the physical properties of the sound wave; and again there is a special branch of linguistics, speech science, where knowledge about language as a physical system is one of the central concerns. The fragmentation of linguistics into a family of subdisciplines reflects and inst in stit itut utio iona nali lize zess thes thesee vari variou ouss angle angless of appro approac ach. h. If we take take it that that,, whereas “branches” of technology deal with different parts of a system, or different stages of a process, branches in science tend to deal with diff di ffer eren entt as aspe pect ctss of one one of the the sa same me syst system em-& -&-p -pro roce cess ss,, then then it is in linguistics that this tendency reaches its furthest point. 3

I used to think that language, or at least the core layers of language, lexi lexiccogra ogramm mmar ar and phon phonol olog ogy, y, woul would d have have to be mode modell lled ed and described differently in all these different contexts, at least for purposes of different applications or different research goals. This was the view expressed in ‘Syntax and the consumer’ (Halliday 1964). This approach wass part wa partly ly take taken n as a defe defenc ncee agai agains nstt the the domi domina nant nt el elit ite, e, for for whom whom linguistics was “a branch of theoretical psychology” (Chomsky) – in the words of Ross ‘I take it for granted that the goal of linguistics is [sic] to explicate the difference between the human brain and that of  an animal’. I was taken to task for suggesting that there might be more than one way of modelling and describing a language (Wales). My problem was, however, that I could not concentrate my vision. Unlike Sydney Lamb, who chose his point of vantage and then stuck to it, I was constantly jumping around to see what language looked like when viewed from the other side. To the extent that I favoured any one angle, it was the social: language as the creature and creator of  6

 

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human society, as expounded by my teacher J. R. Firth and by my fr frie iend nd and colle olleaague gue Bas asil il Bern ernst stei ein n. But by nat atur ure, e, and also also by experience, I was (and have always remained) a generalist. So while

consciously I was trying to model language as a social phenomenon, in fact I was acting against my own advice and trying to look at language 4

from every possibleit vantage in looked turn. at language only from the Most linguists, seemedpoint to me, inside, claiming the right to formulate their own questions about it –  whic wh ich h was was why why lingu linguis isti tics cs seldo seldom m inte interes reste ted d pract practit itio ione ners rs in othe other  r  fields. This was also, of course, a perfectly valid perspective. But it did bring with it certain problems. When I was being trained as a dialect fieldworker, by my other great teacher Wang Li (then Professor of Linguistics at Lingnan University, Cant Ca nton on), ), ther theree were were st stil illl no tape tape reco record rder ers. s. We had had to tr tran ansc scri ribe be responses directly into IPA script, which was excellent training for my later investigation investigation of child language. language. Professor Wang was able to acquire a primitive version of the same thing – a wire recorder, but it was not much use, because the wire was always breaking and would end up as a ball of wire wool fit only for scouring a wok. That was in 1949–50. Not tha that ling lingui uist stic icss had had had had no base base in tech techno nolo logy gy.. Ther Theree was was already high quality instrumentation for acoustic analysis (spectrograph, oscillograph, mingograph), as well as various techniques for investigating the articulatory mechanism of speech. Gramophone records were widely used in language teaching: when I was taught Chinese for the armed services at the University of London in 1942–43, the Department me nt had had its its own own reco record rdin ing g equi equipm pmen entt on whic which h st stud uden ents ts coul could d regi re gist ster er thei theirr own own perf perfor orma manc ncee and and comp compar aree it with with the the reco record rded ed model. There were archives of spoken language on disk and even on cyli cy lind nder, er, incl includ udin ing g dial dialec ectt surv survey ey mate materia riall in a numb number er of diffe differe rent nt languages. But there was no technology for capturing authentic speech, natural conversation in the interactive situations of daily life, nor for  managing an extensive body of text. As a consequence, linguistics had hardly any data. In that respect it was about where physics had been at the end of the fifteenth century, befo be fore re tech techno nolo logy gy had had evol evolved ved to enab enable le physi physici cist stss to obser observe ve and and to conduct experiments. Linguists either relied on the kind of manicured discourse that is produced in writing and in prepared and selfmonitored speech, or else invented data for themselves from their own intu in tuit itio ion n of the the lang langua uage ge,, and and they they had had no way way of proc proces essi sing ng larg largee quantities even of that. For linguistics, the two most important advances in the latter half of 

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the century were technological ones: the invention of the tape recorder  and the evolution of the computer. The tape recorder made it possible to record natural speech. The computer made it possible to process large quantities of data. The two together have given us the modern computerized corpus, with natural speech as a significant component, on whic which h we can can unde undert rtak akee quan quanti tita tati tive ve anal analys yses es on a st stat atis isti tica call lly y si sign gnifi ificcant ant scal scale. e. As a bon bonus, us, the the comp comput uter er ena enabl bles es us to test test our  descriptive generalizations, through text generation and analysis (“parsing”), and to observe and repre present sound wav waves in a wealt lth h of  complementary perspectives. Thes Th esee reso resour urce cess have have tran transf sfor orme med d (or (or at le leas astt are in proc proces esss of  tran transf sform ormin ing) g) the th e way wa la lang ngua uage ge look looks s from fro the the insi in side de.. Patt Pa ttern erns s are area being revealed that wey have known must bemthere, because there was gap where the approaches from the lexical and the grammatical poles of the the lexi lexico cogr gram amma marr conv conver erge ged, d, but but whic which h we coul could d not not see: see: the the nature of grammatical logic is beginning to be understood; the semogenic (meaning-creating) power of discourse is coming into view, both in monologic and in dialogic mode; quantitative mechanisms of linguistic change are beginning to appear on the agenda. From all this it should be possible in the next decade or two to crack the semiotic code,, in the code the sens sensee of comi coming ng full fully y to unde unders rsta tand nd the the rela relati tion onsh ship ip between observed instances of language behaviour and the underlying system of language – something that has eluded us up till now, so that we have even turned the two into different disciplines, calling only one of them “linguistics” and labelling the other “pragmatics”. Some people will feel threatened by this new understanding. We know this because there are those who already do. To bring to light the systems and processes of society is already threatening enough, as witn wi tnes esss the the pani panicc reac reacti tion onss to Bern Bernst stei ein n thir thirty ty year yearss ago ago when when he demonstrated how social class structures are transmitted, but semiotic

systems and processes are even nearer the bone. As long as linguists confined their attention to dead languages, codified texts or sanitized examples like  John kissed Mary   and  It’s cold in here , no one would feel really at risk. But when grammar extends to the study of the meaningcreating power of everyday real life talk, it starts to become dangerous. Some people feel worried that the grammarian is someone who knows what they are going to say next and even if they can be reassured that that is not what theory is about, it is scarcely less threatening (apparently) to be told what proportion of positive to negative clauses they are going to use in their speech. And for others, just to be faced with a record of real life conversation can be unnerving; they feel embarrassed 8

 

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and an d illill-at at-e -eas asee at what what seems seems to inva invade de the the inte intera ract ctan ants ts’’ priva privacy cy and and strip away their elaborately constructed social identities. Others, even if they do not feel threatened or embarrassed, might still want to ask why it matters. Why do we need to bring this extra dimension into our understanding of language? Isn’t it enough to play the traditional part of a grammarian or a phonologist and join in the ende en deav avou ourr – it itse self lf an ente enterp rpri rise se that that has has notc notche hed d up cons consid ider erab able le successes – of broadening our knowledge of the history, typology and structure of the world’s many languages? After all, there is more than enough work here to occupy the community of linguists, even if it was enlarged many times over, in meeting all the theoretical and practical demands in education, multilingualism and multi-culturalism, ecolinguisti gui stics, cs, langua language ge mainte maintenan nance, ce, transl translati ating ng and interp interpret reting ing,, forensi forensicc ling lingui uist stic ic work work and and so on. on. Why Why do we need need a huge huge comp comput uter eriz ized ed corpus of authentic data, which in any case will be available only for a small number of the world’s major languages? There are it seems to me two answers to such questions – or two parts is ultimately a single One to complete the recordtoofwhat a language or rather, since itanswer. can never be iscomplete, to make

record of a language or rather, since it can never be complete, to make it more comprehensive and more accurate. This is what Quirk had in mind mi nd when when,, in laun launch chin ing g the the first first syst system emat atic ic mode modern rn corp corpus us,, the the Survey of English Usage at University College London, he described it as movi moving ng towa toward rdss ‘a ‘an n N.E. N.E.D. D. of Engl Englis ish h usag usage’ e’.. It was was ta take ken n for  for  granted that one of the goals of lexicography was to put on record ‘all’ the words of a language; it was natural to set the same target for the lexicogrammatical patterns in which the words are used. The other part of the answer is perhaps something of a paradox – or  is made to seem paradoxical by “corpus linguists” when they describe them th emse selv lves es as “mer “meree data data-g -gaather therer ers” s”:: to upgr upgrad adee our our theo theory ry – to improve our theoretical understanding of the nature and functioning of  language. If it is true, as is so often proclaimed, that the balance of  people’s activities is going to shift more and more from the material to the semiotic domain, leaving machines and robots to do the material busi bu sine ness ss,, then then the the dema demand ndss on lang langua uage ge and and it itss sate satelli llite te syste systems ms are are going to go on increasing and hence, inevitably, the demands on theory of lang langua uage ge.. Our Our worl world d consi onsist stss of thes thesee two two gran grand d phen pheno omen menal doma do main ins, s, ma matt tter er and and mean meanin ing. g. The The sc scie ienc ncee of matt matter er is phys physic ics; s; the the science of meaning is linguistics. There are fads and fashions in every field of study and linguistics is no exception. In the 1960s, it was almost impossible to get published any analysis of a text. The worst insult that could be paid to a linguist 5

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was to say that he or she was “data-oriented”. Data were said to be irrelevant to the serious study of language; the actual language used by real people, especially spoken language, was dismissed as impoverished and an d unst unstru ruct ctur ured ed,, a mere mere matt matter er of perf perfor orma manc ncee that that coul could d tell tell us noth no thin ing g abou aboutt the the true true obje object ct of desc descri ript ptio ion, n, whic which h was was ling lingui uist stic ic st stru ruct ctur uree – the the rule ruless gene genera rati ting ng the the set set of idea ideali lize zed d sent senten ence cess that that

consti cons titu tute ted d the the idea deal spea speake kerr s compe ompete tenc ncee or know knowle ledg dgee of the the language. Thiss monoli Thi monolithi thicc Cartes Cartesian ian cultur culturee mainta maintaine ined d its stabili stability ty by conconstan stantl tly y re-e re-exa xami mini ning ng it itss own own foun founda dati tion ons, s, findi finding ng newe newerr and and more more elegantt ways of going over the same ground. The idealogy elegan idealogy that pervaded pervaded it and the conditions it brought about have been well described by de Beaugrande. Since it excluded any reference to the social context of  language, it was necessary to invent a new field called sociolinguistics and a new kind of competence called “communicative competence” to go with with it (Hym (Hymes es 1971 1971). ). And And when when a chan change ge of fash fashio ion n brou brough ghtt discourse on to the agenda, an analogous development took place. After  one or two attempts to handle text within the same formalist framewo framework rk had ha d prov proved ed vain vain,, prag pragma mati tics cs was was brou brough ghtt to life life as an inde indepe pend nden entt disciplinary base (and channel for getting things published) and suddenly everybody was “into discourse”. A number of factors came together to ensure the success of the pragmatics enterprise, which has released an enormous amount of energy and raised to theoretical status discursive issues such grown as implication, relevancetoand politeness. Having up in opposition linguistics, pragmatics has largely dispensed with grammar; what theoretical input it has had has been drawn from strands in philosophy and sociology rather than linguistics. In view of its undoubted achievements this may not seem to matter. Perhaps I am just being old-fashioned in deploring this split between two aspects of what to me is a single enterprise: that of trying to explain language. It seems to me, however, that both parts of the project are weakened when they are divorced one from the other. The pro problem is, that if you don’t know the system you can’t understand the text. Discourse is the form in which linguistic systems are instantiated. From this point of view, pragmatics is the instantial aspect of semantics: the semantics of the instance, in other words. To put this in the opposite perspective, the system is the meaning potential that th at lies lies behi behind nd every every insta instanc ncee of disc discou ourse rse.. Chil Childre dren n cons constru truct ct the the system, in fact, from very large numbers of discourse instances, which in the typical case are fluent, well organized and related (and hence relatable) to their instantial situational contexts. 10

 

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If ling lingui uist stic icss had had not not fr frag agme ment nted ed in this this way, way, with with the the syst system em of  language being represented as if it had some mode of being of its own, unre un rela late ted d to any any text text,, and text textss bein being g expo expoun unde ded d as if they they were were innocent of any underlying system, it would have been much harder  for academics from other fields to dismiss language as irrelevant to their  own – and, by implication, everybody else’s – concern. One influential exponent of this position has been Bourdieu (Hasan 1999). Bourdieu is an expert in exploiting the power of language to proclaim that language has no power. This carries the comforting message that therefore you needn’t bother to analyse it. Since grammar is difficult and analysing the lexicogrammar of a text requires a great deal of time and thought, any message that draws attention away from language will always be 6

gratef grat eful ully ly rece receiv ived ed.. The The argu argume ment nt bein being g offe offere red d is that that if you you take take acco ac coun untt of the the cent centra rali lity ty of lang langua uage ge you you are are bein being g “logo “logoce cent ntri ric” c”:: anything “centric” is condemned without being tried. In practice the prob pr oble lem m is exac exactl tly y the the oppo opposi site te – we migh mightt call call it ‘c ‘cen entr trif ifug ugal al’: ’: whenever in dealing with any issue people are brought face to face with language, they will choose to avoid engaging with it if they can. To come back to the iss ssu ue of pragmatics: I am not impl mplying, obviously, that discourse does not depend on factors such as inference, knowledge of the universe and the like. Again, children incorporate these into their language games. I remember one of our rhymes:  Johnny wondered which was louder, Dynamite or blasting powder. He bought some powder and struck a light; He hasn’t yet tried the dynamite.

This sor sort of thing was was oft fteen used sed to challe len nge those of inferio rior  unders und erstan tandin ding g (i.e. (i.e. younge youngerr sibling siblings, s, etc.). etc.). But I don’t think it is 7

sensible to treat these features they were ofof,a and different order in, of  reality from language. They areasallif phenomena operations meaning. What we have to do is extend and enrich our semantics to the point where we can handle these things as part of the system and process of language. Such a task should now be on the agenda.

There is a lot of work to be done before the grammatics reaches the point where it can account for inferential inferential relations relations like these: explaining explaining why Johnny has not yet tried the dynamite, and how the properties of  silk purses and sows’ ears are analogous to those of the imagined Harry after Maggie’s makeover and Harry as he now is. But the relations to be accou ccount nted ed for for are rela relati tion onss of mean meanin ing; g; they they are rath rather er more more comp co mplex lex than than the the si sing ngul ular ar seman semanti ticc rela relati tion onss that that have have alwa always ys been been 11

 

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familiar in the lexicogrammar, like hyponymy and polarity and voice, but still ultimately of the same kind. It should be possible to extend the power of semantic representation so that such ways of reasoning can be integrated into our model of language, rather than being treated as if  they were separate operations in the brain. And it will be necessary to do this, I think, in order to achieve the kind of “intelligent computing” that is envisaged by Michio Sugeno in his work at the Brain Sciences Institute in Tokyo. What the following chapters do is to illustrate some of the steps in my own thinking that have led me in this general direction. The steps that have seemed to me perhaps most critical in this endeavour might be summarized as: the unity of lexicogrammar; the priority of the view ‘f ‘fro rom m abov above’ e’,, fr from om mean meanin ing g and and func functi tion on;; the the move move into into syste systemi mics cs (system networks), freeing the grammar from the restrictions imposed by structure; the metafunctional foundation, disentangling the strands of meaning that are woven together in the syntax; the construction of  lang langua uage ge by chil childr dren en,, fr from om prot protol olan angu guag agee to moth mother er tong tongue ue;; the the deco de coup upli ling ng and and reco recoup upli ling ng of le lexi xico cogr gram amma marr and and sema semant ntic icss – the the phenom phen omen enon on of gramm grammat atic ical al meta metaph phor or;; the the conc concep eptu tual aliz izin ing g of the the relation between system and text (instantiation) and the probabilistic nature of linguistic systems. Some of these will be treated separately in later volumes: in particular Volume 4 on child language and Volume 5

on gram gramma mati tica call meta metaph phor or and and the the lang langua uage ge of sc scie ienc nce. e. Othe Others rs will will appear in various contexts and under a variety of headings. I am often asked about my views on “linguistic universals”. The answer is that I follow Hjelmslev and Firth in distinguishing theoretical from descriptive categories. The theoretical categories, and their interrelations, construe an abstract model of language (and other semiotic systems); they are interlocking and mutually defining. The theory that is constituted in this way is continually evolving as it is brought to bear  on solving problems of a research or practical nature. (No very clear  line is drawn between “(theoretical) linguistics” and “applied linguistics” – except institutionally where, for example, an education authority will wi ll give give teac teache hers rs rele releas asee time time and and prof profes essi sion onal al cred credit it for for a degr degree ee course called “applied linguistics” but not for one called “linguistics”.) 8

Desc De scri ript ptiv ivee cate catego gori ries es are arepeople cate catego gori ries esabout set set up in the the desc dethey scrip ripti tion on of  particular languages. When ask “universals”, usually mean descri rip ptive categories that are assumed to be found in all la lang ngua uage ges. s. The The proble problem m is that that ther theree is no mech mechan anism ism for for deci decidi ding ng how much alike descriptive categories from different languages have to be before they are said to be “the same thing”. There is a method, 12

 

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based on the (theoretical) category of system, for matching up descriptive categories across languages but they are not claimed to be universal, and an d no gran grand d hypo hypoth thesi esiss stand standss or fa fall llss by thei theirr “uni “unive versa rsali lity ty”. ”. The The unit un ity y of huma human n lang langua uage ge,, and its its rela relati tion on to the the huma human n brai brain, n, is proclaimed by the multifaceted architecture of the theory. A volu volume me of typo typolo logi gica call st stud udie iess orga organi nize zed d arou around nd the the theo theore reti tica call category of metafunction will serve to illustrate this standpoint (Caffa fare rel, l, Marti Martin n and and Matt Matthi hies esse sen n 2002 2002). ). My own own inte interp rpre reta tati tion on of the the grammar of modern English wil will be found in   An Intr Introd oduc ucti tion on to Functional Grammar  (Halliday  (Halliday 1985 and later editions). editions). Other descriptive descriptive papers on English and on Chinese will be presented in Volumes 7 and

8. A theory-based account of the ideational semantics of English is in Construing Const ruing Experience Experience through through Meaning  Meaning  (Halliday   (Halliday and Matthiessen 1999). I doubt whether any of the present volumes would have appeared with wi thou outt the the enth enthus usia iasm sm,, ener energy gy and and ef effic ficie ienc ncy y of “my” “my” edit editor or,, Dr   Jonathan Webster, of the City University of Hong Kong. He brought the whole project to life, convincing me that it was worthwhile and convincing the publishers that it could actually come to fruition. It has been a pleasure being driven along by his momentum. My than thanks ks also also to the the publ publis ishe hers rs,, espe especi cial ally ly to Jane Janett Joyc Joyce, e, who who despite years of my ineffectual attempts to get started never lost patience with me or faith in the enterprise, and to Robin Fawcett, who set the whole thing going and provided many rounds of valuable suggestions and advice. Notes

1. Psyc Psycho holo logi gist sts, s, in fact fact,, stud study y psyc psycho holo logy gy – the the do doma main in is defin defined ed by th thee discipline, rather than the other way round. Hence the rather odd locutions like “criminal psychology”, meaning the mind-set, or psyche, of criminals, rather than psychological theories that criminals have devised. I was once putt down pu down ra rath ther er scat scathi hing ngly ly by a psyc psycho holo logi gist st for for su sugg gges esti ting ng th that at th thei eir  r  domain of study might be the human psyche. 2. See Volum Volumee 4 in this this series. series. 3. Lang Langua uage ge is a sy syst stem em of mean meanin ing g (a “s “sem emio ioti tic” c” sy syst stem em); ); and and se semi miot otic ic syst sy stem emss are are of th thee fo four urth th or orde derr of comp comple lexi xity ty,, bein being g al also so ph phys ysic ical al an and d biological and social. This means that one and the same linguistic phenomenon en on (whe (wheth ther er “a lang langua uage ge” ” or a sing single le ut utte tera ranc ncee by one one spea speake ker) r) will will appear in all these various guises. 4. I hope hope it will be clear clear that I am not seekin seeking g either either to justify justify this approa approach ch or to apologize for it. These bits of personal history are brought in simply to pr prov ovid idee a cont contex ext, t, to ex expl plai ain n the the way way the the pape papers rs in thes thesee volu volume mess

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wander wand er thro throug ugho hout ut the the hi high ghwa ways ys and and bywa byways ys of la lang ngua uage ge.. If ther theree has has been any consistent motif, it has been ‘now how would this (phenomenon and its explanation) seem to someone who is interested in language for  some other reason, different from the one that prompted me to explore it?’ 5. St Stri rict ctly ly spea speaki king ng,, of cour course se,, it is semi semiot otic ics; s; bu butt se semi miot otic icss ha hass not not ye yett evolved into a general theory of meaning and it seems likely that, for the time being at least, the way forward is by extending linguistics into other  semiotic systems. I use “meaning” rather than the term “information” (the term imported from those who work on matter) because information is only a sub-class of meaning; it is the part that can be measured, whereas, unlike matter, meaning in general is not open to measurement (though systemic linguistics offers one way in; see Volume 5). 6. We are of course course accustomed accustomed to linguistics linguistics being being dismissed dismissed in this offhand way: “linguists always . . . (or . . . never . . .), so you needn’t bother yourself with what they write”. This is irksome but does little real harm –  linguists will go on writing anyway. What I am talking about here is the asse as sert rtio ion n that that lang langua uage ge has has no rele releva vanc ncee – for for ex exam ampl plee to soci social al and and political processes, and to anyone’s intervention in them. Such assertions can do a great deal of mischief. 7. I have, have, alas, no tape tape record recording ingss of my grandmo grandmothe ther, r, who died in 1959, 1959, in herr mi he midd-ni nine neti ties es.. She She belo belong nged ed to the the la last st gene genera rati tion on,, wi with thin in my own own culture, who spoke unselfconsciously in proverbs. A proverb was a theory of experience, but it was a commonsense theory, not a designed theory, and so construed in commonsense grammar, as one of a class of instances rather than a higher order abstraction. A snatch of dialogue might run like this (the example is invented): Harry’s no good; he’ll never carry corn. That business of his’ll never  thrive, thriv e, believe believe me. I don’t know; he might pull through. And Maggie’s certainly trying to buck him up a bit; she’s set her mind to that. She can’t change him, however hard she tries. You can’t make a silk purs urse out out of a sow’ sow’ss ear. ear. It’d t’d take ake more ore than than Magg Maggie ie to make ake anything out of him. A ta tassk for for the the gram rammatic aticss is to show show th thee rel elat atio ions nshi hip p bet etwe ween en the the proverbial construct and the remainder of the discourse. 8. They constitute, constitute, in Firth’s Firth’s formulation, formulation, “a general general linguistic linguistic theory appliapplicable cab le to par partic ticula ularr lin lingui guisti sticc descri descripti ptions ons,, not a theory theory of univer universal salss for  general gener al lingu linguistic istic description” description” (Firth 1957: 21).

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S ECTION ONE  EARLY PAPERS ON BASIC CONCEPTS

 

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 EDITOR S INTRODUCTION

In this first section we look at five papers written and published by Professor Halliday over a ten-year period from 1957 to 1966. The basic concepts, which form the foundation of Halliday’s systemic theory, are elaborated in these papers. These include such fundamental categories forr a theo fo theory ry of gra gramma mmar as   unit ,   structure ,   class   and   system. system. He also addresses the relations of these categories to each other and to the data in terms of scales of abstraction: rank abstraction:  rank,,  exponence   and delicacy and  delicacy.. When Wh en as aske ked d to comp compar aree his his own own appr approa oach ch with with thos thosee of othe other  r  ling lingui uist stss who who help helped ed shap shapee not not only only his his own own thin thinki king ng but but also also the the disc di scip ipli line ne of ling lingui uisti stics cs as a whol whole, e, Halli Hallida day y note notess Firt Firth’ h’ss inte intere rest st in varieties of a language, Hjelmslev’s focus on language as a whole and  Jakobson’s search for universals across all languages. Already in his early writings, Halliday draws on the insights of these and others to construct a theory of grammar grounded in the linguistic analysis and description of particular languages, which acknowledges the primacy of meaning and the need for systematicity. Published in 1957, the first paper in this section, ‘Some aspects of  systematic systema tic description description and comparison in grammatical grammatical analysis’, analysis’, discu discusses sses theoretical consideration theoretical considerationss which developed developed out of the body of ideas that went into his doctoral dissertation. Building on and extending the general lingui lin guistic stic princi principle pless establ establish ished ed by Firth Firth and other other schola scholars, rs, Hallid Halliday ay demonstrates the application of formal methods of linguistic description to New New Chin Chines esee (Mod (Modern ern Peki Peking nges ese). e). Iden Identi tify fyin ing g form formal al li ling ngui uist stic ic method met hodss as being being derive derived d from from structu structural ral lingui linguisti sticc theory theory,, Hallid Halliday ay maintains that ‘a complete analysis at the grammatical level, in a particular  description in which all forms of the language are related to systems set up with within in the the lang langua uage ge it itsel self, f, requi requires res esta establi blish shme ment nt of gramm grammat atic ical al

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catego cate gori ries es,, orde ordere red d as term termss in inte interr rrel elat ated ed syst system emss and and havi having ng as exponents the substantial (phonic or graphic) segments of the text’. Clearly influenced by Firth’s teaching and his scholarship, Halliday draws dra ws on Firth Firth’s ’s appr approa oach ch to form formul ulat atee a Gene Genera rall Ling Lingui uist stic ic theo theory ry,, which is concerned with how language works at the level of grammar. While some have referred to Halliday’s approach as neo-Firthian, such a characterization does neither scholar justice. Realizing that his theoretical approach, as outlined in ‘Categories of the theory of grammar’ (Chapter 2), diverged from that of his mentor, Halliday sought to have the opportunity to discuss the paper with Firth. Firth’s sudden passing, however, prevented this from happening. In this paper, Halliday sets out following categories ofand grammar: unit ,the   structure  ,   class   fundamental and   system, system, which relatefor to the onetheory another to the data along three distinct scales of abstraction, including  rank  rank,,  exponence  and delicacy and  delicacy.. Halliday prefaces his discussion by stating what he regards as ‘given’, among which he includes the following: a. Texts, or observed language events, are the data to be accounted for, whether spoken or codified in writing. b. Description consists in relating the text to the categories of the theory. Description is not theory; derived from and answerable to the rather theory.it is a body of method c. Linguistic events should be accounted for at a number of different levels. While the primary levels are form, substance and context, a complete complete framework framework of levels requires requires certain certain further further subdivisions subdivisions and additi additions ons,, includ including ing substa substance nce,, whethe whetherr phonic phonic or graphi graphic, c, form on two related levels of grammar and lexis, and context, which is an interlevel relating form to extratextual features. d. The study of phonic substance belongs to a distinct but related body of theo body theory ry,, name namely ly Gene Genera rall Phon Phonet etic ics. s. Phon Phonol olog ogy, y, on the the other hand, relates form and phonic substance, i.e. where linguis-

tics and phonetics interpenetrate. e. Lang Langua uage ge has has both both form formal al mean meanin ing g and and cont contex extu tual al mean meanin ing. g. Formal meaning is the information of information theory; contextual meaning relates to extralinguistic features. f. We must must disti disting ngui uish sh not not only only betw betwee een n theo theory ry and and desc descri ript ptio ion, n, but also between description and presentation, being the way the linguist expounds the description. Elaborating on each of the fundamental categories for the theory of  gramma gra mmar, r, Hallida Halliday y descri describes bes   units   as patt patter ern n carr carrie iers rs.. The The scal scalee on which   units   are ranged in the theory is called   rank. rank.   Structures   are ‘the 18

 

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editor s introduction introduction

ordered repetition of like events that make up the patterns’. There are both  primary   and  secondary structures, distinguished in terms of  delicacy   delicacy, or  depth of detail. Whereas  class  involves ‘the grouping of like events by their occurrence in patterns’,  system  deals with ‘the occurrence of one rather than another among a number of like events’. To help the reader  better understand understand the application application of the categories categories of grammar, Halliday Halliday presents a framework of categories for the description of another very familiar kind of patterned activity, namely, eating a meal. Looking back on this this chap chapte terr af afte terr fort forty y year years, s, Prof Profes esso sorr Hall Hallid iday ay prov provid ides es some some background from his personal history to help readers better understand his very careful concern for assigning things to categories: Struggling with the grammar of Chinese, and then of English, in the conceptual-categorial frameworks which were then available (traditional gramm gra mmar, ar, lingui linguist’ st’ss descri descripti ptions ons of langua languages ges,, Jesper Jespersen sen and Wang Wang Li, Firth’s system–structure theory, Pike, Fries, Hill, Hockett, etc.), I was constantly finding that the categories were unclear: you would find a label attached to some patch or other, but with no indication of what kind ind of cate catego gorry it was was supp suppos osed ed to be and and the the whol wholee bat atte terry of 

technical statements never added up to a coherent picture of the whole. I felt I needed to know where I was at any moment and where any descriptive statement that I made fitted in to the overall account.

In a paper appearing in  Linguistics   in 1963, ‘Class in relation to the axes of chain and choice in language’ (Chapter 3), Halliday discusses the relation of   class   to   structure , the   chain axis   and   class   in relation to system, the  choice axis.  Class is related to two kinds of  structure  found   found in language: the place-ordered, in which a limited number of different elemen ele ments ts occur occur non-re non-recur cursiv sively, ely, and the depthdepth-orde ordered red or recursi recursive ve structure.  Rankshift , for example, refers to a type of recursive structure which cuts across the scale of rank. It is in the fourth paper in this section, ‘Some notes on “deep” grammar’, appearing in the  Journal of   Linguistics   (196 (1966) 6),, that that Hall Hallid iday ay expl explor ores es more more full fully y the the noti notion on of  systemic description involving a selection from among the possibilities recognized by the grammar. The relationship between structural and systemic description may be understood in terms of syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations. Appearing in the same issue of the   Journal of Linguistics   is the last paper in this section, ‘The concept of rank: a reply’, in which Halliday repl re plie iess to argu argume ment ntss again gainst st rank rank gra gramm mmar ar put put forw forwar ard d by P. H. Matthews. As Halliday explains, a   rank grammar   ‘specifies and labels a fixed number of layers in the hierarchy of constituents such that any 19

 

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constituent can be assigned to one or other of the specified layers, or  ranks’. On one point both Halliday and Matthews agree, namely, that rank grammar is a hypothesis about the nature of language. As Halliday argues, it is a hypothesis worth making both for its descriptive advantages and for the questions that follow from it. Attached as the appendix to this section (pp. 127–50) is a description of English, originally prepared in 1964 for a course which Professor 

Halliday gave at the LSA Summer Institute and which later appeared in Kress (1976).

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Chapter One

SOME   ASPECTS OF   SYSTEMATIC D ESCRIPTION AND   COMPARISON IN GRAMMATICAL   ANALYSIS (1957)

1

Des Descri cripti ptive ve an and d his histor torica ical, l, pa parti rticul cular ar an and d com compar parati ative ve

The description of a language employs, at the grammatical level as at all other levels, systems of related categories. Such categories as are established in the description of the grammar of a language may be referred to forms of the language itself, or to forms of another language (or other  languages) or to non-formal-linguistic concepts. The last of these points of reference is clearly of a different order from the other two: there can be no universal universal formal-lingu formal-linguistic istic categories categories (there might theoretically theoretically be categories formally identified as common to all languages studied heretofore, but such identification is not yet a practical possibility), while non-formal-linguistic categories, if they are to figure in the description at all, must be implicitly regarded as universal. Unless it is supposed that the sole domain of linguistic science is the stud st udy y of the the evol evolut utio ion n of ling lingui uist stic ic form forms, s, the the impr improv ovem emen entt of the the methods of linguistic description remains one of the tasks of the linguist. 1

In recent decades, striking advances have been made on the basis of  General Linguistic theory in the development of descriptive techniques, especially of the first type: the description of a language in terms of  categories established within the language itself (Firth 1951). As in the interrelated branches of any discipline, there is a constant mutual con-

tribution between descriptive and historical studies in linguistics; and it is not surprising that many recent developments in the former have been founded on work done in languages where it has not yet been possible to establish estab lish a series series of phonological phonological-lexi -lexical cal and phonological phonological-morph -morphologic ological al First published in Studies in  Studies in Linguistic Analysis (Special Analysis  (Special Volume of the Philological Society), 1957, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 54–67.

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correspondences as a basis for genetic groupings; this especially in Britain, where we have a long tradition of the description of the languages of  Asia, Africa and the Pacific. In such languages, for historical as well as for  descriptive purposes, improved methods have been demanded; but the need for a general  a  general  theory   theory of description, as opposed to a universal  a  universal  scheme   scheme of descriptive categories, has long been apparent, if often unformulated, in the the desc descri ript ptio ion n of all all lang langua uage ges. s. A dist distin inct ctiv ivee cont contri ribu buti tion on of the the twentieth century has been the progress towards its achievement. The sort of descriptive statement which has been the fruit of these achievements is too often characterized negatively by opposition to a historical (the synchronic–diachronic dichotomy) or to a comparative statement. This is probably due in part to the very fact that the techniques have ha ve been been appl applie ied d to lang languag uages es whic which h have have no ‘his ‘histo tory ry’’ (t (tha hatt is is,, no written document of the past) and even no script, and which have not been satisfactorily organized into families by the comparative historical method. It is not unnatural that what is new in descriptive techniques should have been emphasized by its being contrasted with the historical methods which, in the modern period at least, developed earlier; but, while methods, will bene be nefit fitthe bycomparative ques questi tion on and anhistorical, d scru scruti tiny ny,like , it all is other no esse esscientific sent ntia iall part part of mode modern rn descriptive linguistics that it should reject the achievements of the past, still less that it should deny linguistic linguistic history history as a field of scientific scientific study. If we consider general linguistics to be the body of theory which

guides and controls the procedures of the various branches of linguistic science, then any linguistic study, historical or descriptive, particular or  comp co mpar arat ativ ive, e, draw drawss on and cont contri ribu bute tess to the the prin princi cipl ples es of gene genera rall ling lingui uist stic ics. s. A simp simple le sche scheme me for orde orderi ring ng the the branc branche hess of ling lingui uist stic ic science controlled by general linguistics might recognize two dimensions: diagrammaticall diagrammatically, y, the horizontal horizontal represents represents the aim of the linguist, linguist, descriptive or historical, the vertical the scope of the material, particular  (one language text) or comparative (a finite number of language texts greater than one). Thus: Descriptive

Historical   — 

Particular 

 

— 

 —   —   — 

Comparative 

 

—

—

 —

— 

—

—

 —

— 

 —

— 

 

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systemati syste matic c descriptio description n and comp compariso arison n

Any of thes Any thesee type typess of st stu udy may may be unde undert rtaaken ken with with the the use use of  formal linguistic methods: that is, by the methods of what is sometimes called ‘structural linguistics’. (If such a term is to be used, it should perhaps be taken to refer neither to a branch nor to a particular school of lin linguis guisti tics cs but but to tha that body body of gene genera rall ling lingui uist stic ic theo theory ry whic which h controls the application of formal linguistic techniques.) This inclusion of hist histor oric ical al st stud udie iess in the the field field of appl applic icat atio ion n of form formal al ling lingui uist stic ic methods rests on the acceptance of the possibility of arranging language texts according to a time–construct. On a completely a-historical view, there will be only one vertical axis, as any number of texts treated in a single statement could only be material for comparative study: in the

type of comp type compaarati ratism sm envi envisa sage ged d by Alle Allen, n, in whic which h ‘t ‘tiime has has no direction and there is no becoming’ (Allen 1953: 106), diachronic has of course no meaning. In this scheme it is envisaged that there might be a difference in the treatment of material consisting of more than one language text according to whether or not the texts are arranged on a time-scale and   treate treated d as   exponents of the same language at different periods (for example, by the modification of the description in such a way as to present a continuum in which the systematic ordering of the texts corresponds to their ordering in time). A historical study is then formed out of material provided by a series of descriptive studies. The distinction between this method, in which any linguistic form is placed in its descriptive context (systematized) and the systems in which it operates are treated historically, and the type of ishistorical study which ‘structural’ linguistics has excluded – in which traced the evolution of particular forms without descriptive systematization – might be reflected in the addition to the diagram of a third vertical dimension (in fact a breakaway from the second), perhaps ‘evolutionary’. If one wishes to seek an opposition between ‘structural’ linguistics and comparative philology, it must surely depend not on the acceptance or non-acceptance of history but on the type of historical approach. So may the social anthropologist study either the evolution of kingship in a particular tribe or group of tribes, or the place of the institution of kingship in the structure of a given society at different periods of its history. The “structural” linguist does not handle > or