Misrepresenting Halliday's Notion Of Giving Priority To System

Fawcett (2010: 144):

In our survey of the Sydney Grammar, we come now to Question 2 (from Section 7.1), i.e., "Does the Sydney Grammar make available theoretically motivated descriptions of English that are at the levels of language that Halliday's theoretical statements suggest to be desirable?" 

Given Halliday's statement that "in systemic theory the system takes priority" (1993:4505), systemic functional linguists should be describing texts in terms of the features that have been chosen in generating them. We are entitled to ask, therefore, "Where are the networks?" and "How can they be used in the analysis of texts?" 

As we have seen, the only publication that provides anything approaching an adequate coverage of the Sydney Grammar's current system networks for English is Matthiessen's Lexicogrammatical Cartography (1995). This major work (with almost 1000 pages) is intended as a "reference source" (Matthiessen (1995:iii). However, it gives the reader no guidelines on how to use the various system networks for analysing texts, and barely any examples of what such analyses might be like. Indeed, there are, so far as I know, still no published analyses of texts whatsoever that are truly systemic, other than the few that use the Cardiff Grammar, such as the example in Figure 10 in Section 7.8.

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[1] To be clear, in SFL Theory, 'levels of language' can refer to strata, or within strata, to rank. Halliday identifies the stratum of lexicogrammar and the rank of clause as the 'central processing units' of language, and it is these two levels that constitute the main focus of the description of English provided by IFG. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 22, 10):

Grammar is the central processing unit of language, the powerhouse where meanings are created; …

The clause is the central processing unit in the lexicogrammar – in the specific sense that it is in the clause that meanings of different kinds are mapped into an integrated grammatical structure. For this reason the first half of this book is organised around the principal systems of the clause: theme, mood and transitivity. In Part II we move outward from the clause, to take account of what happens above and below it – systems of the clause complex, of groups and phrases, and of group and phrase complexes; and also beyond the clause, along other dimensions so to speak.

The perspective moves away from structure to consideration of grammar as system, enabling us to show the grammar as a meaning-making resource and to describe grammatical categories by reference to what they mean. This perspective is essential if the analysis of grammar is to be an insightful mode of entry to the study of discourse.

[2] To be clear, in SFL Theory, the system takes priority in how language is theorised. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49):

Giving priority to the view ‘from above’ means that the organising principle adopted is that of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices. In other words, the dominant axis is the paradigmatic one: the fundamental components of the grammar are sets of mutually defining contrastive features (for an early statement, see Halliday, 1966a). Explaining something consists not in stating how it is structured but in showing how it is related to other things: its pattern of systemic relationships, or agnateness…

It does not logically follow from this approach to theorising language that applications of the theory, such as "describing texts", instances of language, should be restricted to only one dimension of the theory: the paradigmatic axis, (the features selected).

[3] To be clear, the third and fourth editions of IFG, Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014), include networks for the clause rank systems of THEME, MOOD and TRANSITIVITY.

[4] To be clear, the third and fourth editions of IFG, Halliday & Matthiessen (2004, 2014), include text analyses using the features of the clause rank systems of THEME, MOOD and TRANSITIVITY.

[5] This is very misleading. The Cardiff Grammar is not "truly systemic" since its focus is on structure, not system, as demonstrated by the focus on structure in this publication, and its absence of system networks. As previously noted, Fawcett's Figure 10 misrepresents systemic features as structural elements, and no system is provided for the proposed features.