Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Chapter 5: Choice, System and Realization: Describing Language as Meaning Potential [2013]
Describing Language: Form and Function - The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan Vol 5 - Ruqaiya Hasan†
Ruqaiya Hasan† [+]
Macquarie University
Ruqaiya Hasan, who died in 2015, was a professor of linguistics who taught and held visiting positions at various universities in England. Her last appointment was at Macquarie University, Australia, from where she retired as Emeritus Professor in 1994. Throughout her career she researched and published widely in the areas of verbal art, culture, context and text, text and texture, lexicogrammar and semantic variation.
Read her obituary here
Description
Reference to “choice” in SFL theory has no concern with individuality, freedom, will or all those other qualities that dictionaries assign to the act of choice. Rather “choice” is being used metaphorically to explicate the inner workings of language. Choice, system and realization together represent one critical aspect of the semiotic mechanism whereby the linguistic sign comes to have some conventionally shared meaning in speech fellowships.