Approaches to Systemic Functional Grammar; Convergence and Divergence; Gordon Tucker; Guowen Huang; Lise Fontaine; Edward McDonald

Edited by

Gordon Tucker [+–]

Cardiff University (retired)

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Dr Gordon Tucker was formerly Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, and is now, in retirement, Honorary Research Fellow in the same Centre. His research is located within the theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics, and in particular in the area of lexical and phraseological organisation within a Systemic Functional Grammar. He is the author of The Lexicogrammar of Adjectives (1998, Cassell Academic), and has published more than 40 journal articles and book chapters. He has taught courses as an invited scholar and has been a plenary speaker in Canada, India, South Korea, Brazil, Venezuela, France, Madagascar, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Much of his research and subsequent publications have involved modelling lexicogrammatical organisation in the light of corpus linguistic findings, and it has been especially the challenge of corpus linguistic research that has led to his seminal work on phraseology within a Systemic Functional model of language.

Guowen Huang [+–]

City University of Macau

HUANG Guowen is Chair Professor of the Changjiang Programme selected by the Ministry of Education of P.R. China. He has been a professor of Functional Linguistics since 1996 at Sun Yat-sen University, P.R. China. He is now at City University of Macau. He was educated in Britain and received two PhD degrees from two British universities (1992: Applied Linguistics, Edinburgh; 1996, Functional Linguistics, Cardiff). He was a Fulbright Scholar in 2004-2005 at Stanford University. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal Foreign Languages in China (bimonthly) published by the Higher Education Press, China. He is also co-editor of the journal of Functional Linguistics (Springer) and co-editor of Journal of World Languages (Routledge). He publishes extensively both in China and abroad and serves/served as an editorial/advisory committee member for several journals, including Linguistics and the Human Sciences (Equinox), Language Sciences (Elsevier), Journal of Applied Linguistics (Equinox), and Social Semiotics (Carfax). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Monograph Series Discussions in Functional Approaches to Language (Equinox). His research interests include Systemic Functional Linguistics, Ecolinguistics, Discourse Analysis, Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies.

Lise Fontaine [+–]

Cardiff University

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Lise Fontaine is a Reader at Cardiff University (Wales). She lectures mainly on functional grammar, word meaning, corpus linguistics, and psycholinguistics. Her research interests include functional grammar theory and, more specifically, the study of referring expressions. She is the author of Analysing English Grammar: A systemic-functional introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and co-author of Referring in Language: An integrated approach (Cambridge Univesity Press, forthcoming). She has also co-edited the following three volumes: Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2013); Choice in Language: Applications in Text Analysis (Equinox, 2013) and Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics: An Appliable Theory of Language (Routledge, 2018), The Oxford Companion to the English Language, 2nd ed. (Oxford University Press, 2018) and The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, in press).

Edward McDonald [+–]

Independent Researcher

Edward McDonald gained his BA(Hons) from the University of Sydney in 1988, his MA from Peking University in 1992, and his PhD from Macquarie University in 1999, with theses on the clause and verbal group grammar of modern Chinese. He has taught linguistics, Chinese language, translation, semiotics, and music at universities in Australia, China, Singapore, and New Zealand. His recent research interests include the application of systemic functional theory to a range of languages including modern Chinese and Scottish Gaelic (Meaningful Arrangement: exploring the syntactic description of texts, Equinox 2008); Chinese language teaching and the hybrid concept of “sinophone” (Learning Chinese, Turning Chinese: challenges to becoming sinophone in a globalised world, Routledge 2011); and the comparative history of European and Chinese traditions of language scholarship (Grammar West to East: The investigation of linguistic meaning in European and Chinese traditions, Springer forthcoming).

This volume brings together contributions to a key area of interest within the framework of systemic functional linguistics: the role of meaning in the lexicogrammar. A key figure in the debate on this role is Robin Fawcett who has long argued for a fully semantic lexicogrammar where the relevant systems are seen as representing ‘choices between meanings’. This volume, a festschrift in honour of Fawcett’s long-standing contribution to the field, raises important questions related to lexicogrammatical meaning within systemic functional linguistics by examining the meaning-form interface, lexicogrammatical meaning in theme and transitivity, as well as lexis, intonation and its role in computational models. Importantly, discussions in the volume also explore the relationship between alternative approaches to systemic functional lexicogrammar, notably between the Hallidayan model and the Cardiff Grammar model developed primarily by Robin Fawcett.

Preliminaries

Foreword [+–] vii-xii

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen FREE

University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing

Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen is a Swedish-born linguist and a leading figure in the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) school, having authored or co-authored more than 160 books, refereed journal articles, and papers in refereed conference proceedings, with contributions to three television programs. He is currently Distinguished Professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of International Business and Economics,
Beijing, Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, in the School of Foreign Languages, Hunan University, Guest Professor at Beijing Science and Technology University, and Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. Before this, he was Chair Professor, Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Professor in the Linguistics Department of Macquarie University. Professor Matthiessen has worked in areas as diverse as language typology, linguistics and computing, grammatical descriptions of various languages, grammar and discourse, healthcare communication studies, functional grammar for English-language teachers, text analysis and translation, multisemiotic studies, and the evolution of language. He has supervised over 40 research students.

About the editors [+–] xiii-xiv

Gordon Tucker,Guowen Huang,Lise Fontaine,Edward McDonald FREE

Cardiff University (retired)

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City University of Macau

Cardiff University

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Independent Researcher

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-14

Gordon Tucker,Guowen Huang,Lise Fontaine,Edward McDonald FREE

Cardiff University (retired)

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City University of Macau

Cardiff University

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Independent Researcher

Section 1: Divergence

1. Finding Complementarity in the Approaches of M.A.K.Halliday and Robin Fawcett [+–] 17-37

Jonathan J. Webster £17.50

City University of Hong Kong

Jonathan J. Webster is Professor, Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics, and Director, The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies at the City University of Hong Kong. He is also the General Editor of the Equinox journal Linguistics and the Human Sciences and a co-author, with M.A.K. Halliday, of Text Linguistics, published by Equinox in 2014.

The past 20 years or so have witnessed the discussion on the differences between the Sydney grammar and the Cardiff Grammar, as they are said to be two different registers or dialects in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Jonathan Webster’s chapter aims to find complementarity in the approaches of M.A.K. Halliday and Robin Fawcett, as they represent these two models. The author investigates complementarities in these two approaches by looking at instantiation and stratification, among other things. The author points out that Halliday and Fawcett offer complementary perspectives on the phenomena they dub grammatical metaphor and incongruence respectively, and he agrees with Miriam Taverniers that Fawcett’s algorithmic approach to grammatical metaphor is ‘horizontal’ while Halliday’s is ‘vertical’.

2. Relating Form and Meaning: A Comparison of the Cardiff Grammar with Other Functional and/or Cognitive/constructionist Approaches [+–] 38-56

Christopher Butler £17.50

Swansea University

Christopher Butler took a degree in biochemistry at Oxford University and taught biochemistry for several years, but then moved into linguistics, which he taught first at the University of Nottingham, then at what was what is now York St John University, where he held a Professorship in Linguistics. He took early retirement in 1998 to devote more time to research and writing. He holds an Honorary Professorship at Swansea University and is Visiting Professor at the University of Huddersfield. He has Honorary Doctorates from Ghent University and the Universidad de La Rioja. He has published several books and more than 80 articles, mostly on functional linguistics, computational and statistical techniques of language study, and corpus-based description of English and Spanish. His most significant book-length publications are Structure and Function: A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories (2 vols., Benjamins, 2003) and Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space (co-authored with Francisco Gonzálvez-García, Benjamins, 2014).

This chapter by Christopher Butler explores the issue of form/meaning relations in respect of similarities and differences between a number of functional theories of language: the Cardiff (Systemic Functional) Grammar and a range of other approaches, namely the Sydney (Systemic Functional) approach, Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG), Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) and also Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar and Goldberg’s Cognitive Construction Grammar as representative of cognitive/constructionist models. It discusses the somewhat diverse mechanisms through which form and meaning are related in the various approaches. pointing to some important overall characteristics of the various models which help explain the difference in handling of form/meaning relations.

3. On the Abstractness of Levels of Description in Systemic Functional Linguistics [+–] 57-75

Mick O’Donnell £17.50

Universidad Autonoma de Madrid

Mick O’Donnell is a lecturer at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. From 1990 through 2001, he worked on various Text Generation projects, including Penman, ILEX and HiPS. He has also developed parsers for Systemic Grammar, funded by Fujitsu, and Language & Computing n.v. He is the author of UAM CorpusTool, software to support manual and automatic annotation of corpora, and earlier tools such as Systemic Coder and RSTTool. His current research interest focuses on exploring foreign language development through studying Learner Corpora. He is principal investigator of the Alegro project, developing an online system for English Grammar learning based on deep analysis of critical problems of Spanish learners.

Michael O’Donnell’s chapter explores the relative placement of linguistic descriptions in two models of Systemic Functional Grammar, namely that proposed by Michael Halliday and colleagues and that proposed by Robin Fawcett and colleagues, the Cardiff Grammar. It compares the general orientation of the respective models, notably the ‘social’ for Halliday and the ‘cognitive’ for Fawcett and describes the levels (e.g. semantic, lexicogrammatical) adopted in each and discusses the criteria posited to motivate the organisation of each level. In particular. it compares the criteria that each model adopts for the recognition of process types in the central system of transitivity.

4. Embedding in the Cardiff Grammar: A Comparative Study [+–] 76-95

Zhang Delu £17.50

Tongji University

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Zhang Delu is Professor of linguistics and applied linguistics at the School of Foreign Languages, Tongji University, Shanghai, China; His major research areas are systemic functional linguistics, discourse analysis, functional stylistics, social semiotics and foreign language teaching.

This chapter evaluates the concept of embedding in the framework of the Cardiff Grammar and through this, offers a comparison of its treatment in the Cardiff Grammar as compared to Halliday’s grammar. After reviewing the treatment of embedding in traditional grammar, rankshift and embedding are discussed in relation to grammatical metaphor as well as parataxis and hypotaxis. The comparison considers differences between the two grammars in terms of the theoretical approaches and basic theoretical concerns. The differences are but largely complementary in the sense and as such when combined, they provide a more comprehensive picture of phenomena such as embedding.

5. ‘United but not the Same’: Exploring Ways of Talking across Divergence within SFL [+–] 96-113

Edward McDonald £17.50

Independent Researcher

McDonald’s chapter explores the important role played by Fawcett in intratheoretical engagement within SFL. Drawing on Fawcett’s own linguistic-historical reflections on the evolution of SFL theory, and his arguments for his ‘Cardiff’ version of SFL in contrast to the ‘Sydney’ version, it discusses whether the metaphor of ‘dialect’ or ‘register’ more appropriately characterizes variants of SFL, and the nature of evidence commonly adduced to support differing positions on, for example, the verbal group. It concludes that different varieties of SFL, while drawing on a common theoretical tradition, nevertheless have different aims and applications and cannot be evaluated by identical criteria.

Section 2: Convergence

6. From Form to Meaning in the Cardiff Model of Language and Its Use: A Functional-Syntactic Analysis of ‘He has been Talking about Going to the Grand Canyon with Margaret for Many Years’ [+–] 117-134

Guowen Huang £17.50

City University of Macau

In this chapter, the author illustrates a functional-syntactic analysis of an English sentence within the theoretical framework of the Cardiff Grammar, with two aims: (1) to distinguish between Participant Roles and Circumstantial Roles by using the principles of functional syntax, with special reference to the Cardiff Grammar, and (2) to show how Halliday (1994) and Fawcett (2008) would differ in illustrating the relationship between form and meaning in terms of the analysis of the example. Specifically, the author argues for the importance of a two-level analysis (at the level of form / syntax, at the level of meaning / semantics) in a functional-syntactic analysis. This paper is designed as an exercise in illustrating an analytical approach to developing a scientific procedure for the analysis of texts.

7. On the Meaning-Form Interface of the Cardiff Grammar [+–] 135-156

Victor Castel £17.50

National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

Víctor M. Castel has degrees in Linguistics from the University of Chicago (MA), and from Université Blaise Pascal (PhD), Clermont-Ferrand, France. He is Professor of Computational Linguistics in the Department of English, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina. Castel retired in 2015 from the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research where he carried out research projects informed by Generative Grammar since 1985 and Systemic Functional Linguistics since 1998. His latest major contribution was a computational implementation of the Cardiff Grammar in its generation-oriented mode.

Victor Castel’s chapter addresses the meaning-form interface (MFI) of the Cardiff Grammar (CG) from a generation-oriented perspective that reflects the author’s work on the computational implementation of CG. The MFI comprises the realisation rules which map semantic features selected from the network of semantic options (the selection expression) and define the formal structure of clauses. It describes the role of ‘triggers’ in this process, which account for the central formal relationships in the structure, such as Filling, Componence and Exponence, Castel’s shows how graph notation makes explicit the complex relations, both in the semantics and in the form, that are not explicit in CG representations.

8. Lexical Representation in the Cardiff Grammar: An Appraisal [+–] 157-173

Gordon Tucker £17.50

Cardiff University (retired)

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Gordon Tucker’s chapter evaluates lexical representation and description within the Cardiff model of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). It addresses the question of the extent to which grammatical and lexical organisation are interdependent within a framework that adopts Halliday’s notion of ‘lexis as most delicate grammar’, and whether available lexical choices are appropriately motivated. It also explores lexical phenomena emerging from corpus linguistic research, and whether the Cardiff Grammar can accommodate them. It concludes that whilst the Cardiff Grammar architecture is largely in place to represent such phenomena, much more work is needed in developing the lexical resource, motivating lexical choice and extending its descriptive coverage.

9. Referring and the Nominal Group: A Closer Look at the Selector Element [+–] 174-190

Lise Fontaine,David Schönthal £17.50

Cardiff University

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Cardiff University

David Schönthal is a Research Associate at Cardiff University, working with Professor A. Wray on linguistic perspectives on dementia. He has previously lectured at Cardiff University on functional grammar, lexicology, lexicography, and psycholinguistics. His main research interests include different approaches to grammar, such as functional grammar and construction grammar, the meaning of words, and the implementation of a multimethod approach. Specifically, he is interested in the English nominal group and the functions of the relator of, on which he completed his doctoral thesis in 2016. He is further passionate about pedagogy, andragogy, and the teaching of academic writing, and is offering writing and grammar support sessions to undergraduate and postgraduate students at Cardiff University. David is also co-author of Referring in Language: An integrated approach (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming) and co-editor of The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Cambridge University Press, in press).

This chapter examines the methodological implications of approaches to the functional elements of determiner, head and qualifier within the Cardiff Grammar (CG). The CG account of the nominal group has developed an extensive account of the various types of determiner in English and yet there are some descriptive issues that have arisen out of these developments. In this chapter, focusing on the item of, the authors reveal how problematic the assumption of a head element is and argue that shifting the perspective away from headedness leads to different descriptive analyses with very different theoretical implications. Taking a more cognitive approach to of-nominals, the authors show how integrating advances from cognitive linguistics can contribute to a functional account of English complex nominals.

Section 3: Description

10. Quantifying Things: The ‘Quantifying Modifier’ and its Raising Construction in Japanese [+–] 193-214

Hiroshi Funamoto £17.50

Hokuriku University

Hiroshi Funamoto is associate professor in the Faculty of Economics and Management at Hokuriku University, Japan. His current research interests include the linguistic analysis of Japanese texts and developing a Systemic Functional Grammar of Japanese based on the Cardiff Model of language and its use. He is a contributor to the co-authored book, Language is Living: An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, the first compilation of original writings by Japanese scholars in SFL. He is responsible for the Japanese translation of Robin Fawcett’s Invitation to Systemic Functional Linguistics through the Cardiff Grammar, 3rd edition, which will be published by Kaitakusha (in press).

Funamoto’s chapter explores the phenomenon of quantifying modifiers (qtm) in Japanese, elements specifying the quantity of things which function as modifiers inside the nominal group. They may also occur outside the nominal group in a ‘raised qtm construction’, where the qtm is ‘raised’ to a place where it appears to function as the element of the clause. Funamoto concludes that the functional syntax of this construction is motivated by two factors: (a) the choices of conditioning features from the transitivity network; and (b) the operation of placing the qtm in the focal region where it receives tonic prominence.

11. Intonation in Semantic System Networks [+–] 215-234

Paul Tench £17.50

Cardiff University (retired)

Paul Tench was formerly Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, Wales. He retired in 2007 after more than 40 years in full-time academic life and is now active as a Research Associate at Cardiff. His main teaching responsibilities were in phonetics, the phonology of English, applied linguistics in language teaching and introductions to Systemic-Functional Linguistics. His research focussed mainly on the description of British English intonation, which resulted in The Roles of Intonation in English Discourse (1990), the Intonation Systems of English (1996) and Transcribing the Sound of English (2011) and many journal articles. His first major publication was Pronunciation Skills (1981). Since retirement he has devoted time to exploring system networks at the level of word phonology, and to working with minority language groups in devising orthographies for hitherto unwritten languages in Nigeria and Zambia. His publications can be viewed in http://www.paultenchdocs.co.uk/.

This chapter is a personal review of the functions of intonation in the grammar and discourse of English speakers. It offers an extension to Halliday’s classic statement (Halliday 1967, 1970) and also reflects recent innovations in intonation that have been widely reported. It also takes into account Fawcett’s categories of meaning, or ‘functional components’ (Fawcett 1980), which are found useful as a basis for displaying six separately identifiable functions that intonation performs in English: the identification of spoken genres, phonological paragraphing, the organization of information, communicative (discourse) functions, the expression of attitude and the disambiguation of identically worded clauses. It concludes with a general statement about the neat association between the categories themselves and the subsystems of intonation.

12. On Choosing the Subject Theme [+–] 235-251

Margaret Berry £17.50

University of Nottingham (retired)

Margaret Berry, now retired, was Reader in English Language at the University of Nottingham, UK. She has published introductory books on systemic linguistics: An Introduction to Systemic Linguistics (Vol. 1): Structures and Systems (1975) Batsford and An Introduction to Systemic Linguistics (Vol. 2): Levels and Links (1977) Batsford. She has also published articles on a wide number of aspects of SFL, including context of situation, exchange structure, theme and rheme, given and new, register variation, and the application of SFL to the teaching of English. Her current research interests are in context of situation, exchange structure, theme and rheme and the written language of school children. She has lectured in China, Australia and Canada, as well as in Europe. She was instrumental in the organisation of a series of SFL workshops in Nottingham (1989-1992) which led to the formation of the European branch of the Systemic Functional Linguistics Association.

Margaret Berry’s chapter is concerned with Theme in English or Subject Theme in particular. The focus of the chapter is on the Subject Themes produced by two human communicating minds (language users). And the questions she asks include: (1) What influences the communicating minds when they make their choices? (2) Do communicating minds seem to be influenced by the main topic entities of the larger stretches of discourse when selecting the main topic entities, and so the Subject Themes, of the individual clauses? (3) What is the relationship between choice of Subject Theme and context of situation? and in particular, (4) Is there any evidence from the data used in the chapter that the communicating minds select different types of Subject Theme in differently perceived contexts of situation?

13. Negation in Japanese: A New Treatment of Nai as a Process Type in the Japanese Transitivity Network – A Kyoto Grammar Approach [+–] 252-268

Masa-aki Tatsuki £17.50

Doshisha University

Tatsuki’s chapter explores the transitivity system of Japanese by way of the negator nai which functionally is itself a type of Process. The four main types of Process in Japanese are recognized as possessive, active, stative, and static: the static type has the subtypes of attributive, realised by the ‘adjective’ class, and manner, realised by the ‘adjectivals’ class, with nai inflectionally patterning like an adjective but semantically the negative of the stative inanimate. Tatsuki explores the implications of this placement of negation within the system of transitivity and its interaction with the system of modality.

14. An Alternative Model of the Transitivity System of Chinese [+–] 269-292

He Wei £17.50

Beijing Foreign Studies University

HE Wei is Professor of Linguistics, Deputy Director of the National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education, and Deputy Director of the National Research Centre for State Language Capacity at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She is author of over 160 publications and 80 presentations, including papers published in Linguistics, Language Sciences, Functions of Language, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Linguistics and the Human Sciences, Functional Linguistics, etc. She is chair of China Association of Ecolinguistics, SFL representative of International Ecolinguistics Association and deputy chair of China Association of Discourse Analysis. She has served as co-editor, column editor, associate editor, editorial advisory board member, or guest reviewer for over twenty international and national journals. Her areas of expertise include SFL, ecolinguistics, translation studies, and discourse analysis. She is particularly interested in exploring the interface between semantics and syntax from a functional point of view and in applying SFL to ecolinguistic studies.

He’s chapter explores the transitivity system of Modern Chinese from a cognitive functional perspective and sets up a classification of Process Types and Participant Roles (PR) based on a corpus of a range of text types. Starting from an overall distinction between ‘autonomous’ experiences that occur of themselves and ‘influenced’ experiences brought about by other factors, it distinguishes the three major types of action, mental, and relational, with numerous subtypes within them. Each subtype is defined by the number of PRs, with the action type including a ‘no-role’ meteorological subtype, and then by the semantic nature of the PRs.

15. The Ideational Semantics of the Canonical Existential Clause in English [+–] 293-312

Kristin Davidse £17.50

Catholic University of Leuven

Kristin Davidse is professor of English Linguistics at the University of Leuven. She is also an alumna of the University of Sydney, where she was introduced to Hallidayan Functional Linguistics. Halliday supervised her Ph.D. in Linguistics on Categories of Experiential Grammar (1991). Her main research interest is the description of English grammar from a functional perspective. In the area of clause grammar, she has published on such topics as transitive – intransitive versus lexically ergative clauses, as well as middle, existential, copular and ditransitive constructions. In addition, she has dealt with it-and there-clefts and clauses containing fact projection. She has also published on various processes of change such as grammaticalization, deictification and intersubjectification in the English nominal group, as well as on the structure and functions of the nominal group per se. She was one of the founding editors of the journal Functions of Language.

This article challenges the locative interpretation of English unmarked existentials, according to which existential there is analysed as an adverb designating an abstract location, which may be specified by an adjunct predicating a specific location of the Existent NP (e.g. Lyons 1975). Existential there is argued to be a definite enclitic pronoun, pointing with weak cataphoric force to the entities designated by the Existent NP. It is proposed that the clause nucleus of unmarked existentials expresses quantification of the newly introduced instantiation of the type specifications conveyed by the Existent NP. This semantic target is restricted to the specifications of the search domain provided by the VP, any sentence adjuncts that may be present and relevant elements from the context.

Section 4: Towards Consilience

Models – Predictions – Data: An (Un)problematic Relationship? [+–] 315-341

Erich Steiner £17.50

Saarland University

Erich Steiner, born 1954 in Heidelberg/ Germany, studied English and German Philology in Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Cardiff, Reading and London (GB), and has held posts in Saarbrücken, Luxembourg and Darmstadt. He has served as Head of Department, Pro-Dean and Dean at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, and has received calls from several other universities. Since 1990, he has been Chair of English Linguistics and Translation Studies, later on English Translation Studies, Dept. of Language Science and Technology, University of Saarland, Saarbrücken. His major research interests include Functional Linguistics, Translation Theory and Comparative Linguistics, as well as Empirical Linguistics more generally. He has been Visiting Professor at Rice University, Houston/ Texas, at the University of Southern California/ Los Angeles, Dublin City University, Macquarie University Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Oslo, as well as Hong Kong Polytechnic University and City University of Hong Kong over the past 30 years.

Reflecting the ongoing debate on whether linguistics is an empirical discipline, Erich Steiner’s chapter addresses the question of whether Systemic Functional Linguistics in general, and the Cardiff version of it associated with the work of Robin Fawcett in particular, are empirical disciplines. The author argues that many functional linguistic models are not empirical disciplines as prototypical sciences like physics, chemistry, or biology and that compared with Halliday’s Sydney Grammar the Cardiff Grammar may have more transparent operationalizations, but it also has more limited scope in terms of domains of modelling and of application. The chapter concludes that becoming exclusively empirical may not be desirable for Systemic Functional Linguistics and for any socially responsible linguistics.

End Matter

Index [+–] 337

Gordon Tucker FREE

Cardiff University (retired)

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Reviews

As I review the list of insightful and substantial contributions to this volume by scholars who (like me!) admire, and have benefited from, Robin’s enormous multi-faceted contributions to linguistics in general and to our academic community in particular, I am of course struck by the variety of contributions, both in terms of geography and in terms of subject matter. This is entirely appropriate, reflecting Robin’s engagement with and support of scholars and students around the world.
From the Foreword by Professor Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Approaches to Systemic Functional Grammar

Convergence and Divergence

Gordon Tucker [+–]

Cardiff University (retired)

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Guowen Huang [+–]

City University of Macau

Lise Fontaine [+–]

Cardiff University

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Edward McDonald [+–]

Independent Researcher

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