Historical Overview
Experiential Grammar in Systemic Functional Linguistics - Assumptions and challenges - Beatriz Quiroz
Beatriz Quiroz [+]
Departamento de Ciencias del Lenguaje, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Description
This chapter reviews the ways in which experiential grammar has been dealt with over the decades within SFL, mostly focusing on the ‘transitivity’ analysis or process types analysis in English. Within the Hallidayan tradition, early developments in the description of experiential types - such as major material, mental and relational processes - from a ‘systemic’ and ‘grammar-only’ perspective are firstly reviewed. The chapter then moves on to the shift in emphasis to clause structure along with ‘probes’ for text analysis in early editions of An Introduction to functional grammar (in the 80s and early 90s). Work developed in the context of computational implementation is also examined. This historical exploration then reviews the orientation of richer systemic accounts presented in later editions of IFG in recent years, which co-exist with a number of descriptive proposals oriented to different purposes, including pedagogic applications and (critical) discourse analysis. Finally, the alternative presented to transitivity analysis in the Cardiff model is briefly examined. Reference to other functional models (case grammar, lexicase, RRG) is addressed throughout the chapter when relevant.