Misrepresenting SFL Theory On Paradigmatic Relations

Fawcett (2010: 43n):

If you are not a systemic functional linguist, you may be asking at this point: "Why do systemic functional linguists give priority to paradigmatic relations between meanings rather than forms?" It is a good question, and it may be helpful to say briefly what my answer is. Ultimately, it is because generating a text involves making choices, and it is clearly the contrasts between alternative meanings between which we choose — rather than the contrasts between the forms. For example, if two outputs from the grammar display a contrast in form, as between that student and those students, the importance of the contrast is that the two forms express a contrast in meaning which the Performer wishes to communicate to the Addressee. In other words, the difference between 'singular' and 'plural' is ultimately a difference of meaning rather than form. (But there is, of course, no meaning without form.)

Blogger Comments:

This is misleading.  SFL theory gives priority to view from above, from meaning (semantics), in modelling the grammar (wording), but it nevertheless distinguishes between paradigmatic relations at the level of meaning (semantics) and paradigmatic relations at the level of wording (lexicogrammar).  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 49) explain:

Being a ‘functional grammar’ means that priority is given to the view ‘from above’; that is, grammar is seen as a resource for making meaning – it is a semanticky kind of grammar. But the focus of attention is still on the grammar itself.  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 …

On the other hand, SFL theory includes form in the paradigmatic relations at the level of wording (lexicogrammar) in the guise of the rank scale — clause, group/phrase, word, morpheme — each of which provides the entry condition for systems of paradigmatic relations between functions.