LSA Symposium Functions, Functionalism, and Linguistics

1. LSA SymposiumFunctions, Functionalism, and Linguistics Systemic Functional Linguistics Basic Principles The proof of the pudding is in the [piano] playing Bill Greaves and Jim Benson . greaves@glendon.yorku.ca jbenson@gmail.com

2. Outline • Malinowski • Metafunctions, strata, units, systems, structures, instantiation. • “Trinocular Vision” • Ape-Human dialogue in English • Literature: 18th C. Pope epigram • References

3. Malinowski

4. METAFUNCTIONSSFL is all about the work that language does • Ideational work • Experiential: Representing the world as symbols • Logical Sorting out the internal connections in language. • Interpersonal work: Enacting social relationships • Textual work: Weaving the ideational and interpersonal work to engender a message

5. STRATA • Context (Culture – Register – Instance) • Semantics • Lexicogrammar • Phonology • Phonetics

6. Where does context come from? 1. It comes from the experiential meanings we create in our semantic choices. 1. Experiential meanings and fields of discourse. • Experiential choices construe (create) our fields of discourse—and our fields of discourse push our semantics and lexicogrammar as the field expands. • “A fixed tripple of unit vectors, corresponding to a fixed choice of a (right handed) xyz coordinate system” is an instance of field restricted language necessary to play a role in the context of mathematics.

7. Where does context come from? 2. It comes from the interpersonal meanings we enact in our semantic choices. 2. Interpersonal meanings and tenor of discourse. • Interpersonal choices enact our tenors of discourse – our role relationships. • And as our society changes in social habits this puts pressure on our semantics, lexicogrammar and phonology to handle, for example, new norms of politeness.

8. Where does context come from? 3 It comes from our inventory of genres. • 3. Textual meanings weave interpersonal and experiential meanings into the various genres we find in our culture. • Learning how to shape seminar presentations and essays (Theme and Rheme and Given and New information), for example, is as painful a part of university education as learning the experiential semantic categories of the various disciplines.

9. UNITS • EXCHANGE: TURN: MOVE (in interpersonal semantics) • CLAUSE: GROUP/PHRASE: WORD: MORPHEME (in lexicogrammar) • TONE UNIT: FOOT: SYLLABLE: PHONEME (in phonology)

10. SYSTEMS • In semantics there is, for example, a MOVE system network: • [Give] / [Demand] • [Goods & Services] / [Information]. • In lexicogrammar there is a MOOD system: • [Indicative] (+Finite +Subject) / [Imperative] • If [Indicative], then [declarative] (Subject^Finite)/ [interrogative (Finite^Subject] • In phonology there is a TONE system: • [tone 1] / [tone 2] / [tone 3] / [tone 4] / [tone 5]

11. An example: TONE choices in phonology realizing delicate MOOD: KEY choices in lexicogrammar Consider the following utterances all containing the [declarative] wording I like it (Subject^Finite^Predicator^Complement), spoken in reference to a painting seen at an art gallery

12. 5 different DECLARATIVE: KEY CHOICESHallilday – Greaves Intonation in the Grammar of English, pg. 50

13. Realization chain: lexicogrammar: phonology: phonetics: instance

14. STRUCTURES in lexicogrammar • Textual work: • Theme ^Rheme: I like hamburg / hamburg I like • Interpersonal work: • Finite ^ Subject : Do you like hamburg? I don’t!; • Subject ^ Finite: Everyone likes hamburg • Ideational work: • Actor Process Circumstance: Sue drove carefully

15. STRUCTURES The structures vary independently: • Sue drove carefully – Carefully, Sue drove (around it) • Same ideational work; different textual work. • Sue drove carefully – Did Sue drive carefully? • Same ideational work; different interpersonal work • Sue drove carefully – Sue drove a pickup truck • Same textual and interpersonal work – different ideational work.

16. INSTANTIATION Climate and weather are the same thing, but they vary in instantiation. • The Canadian climate is the “big picture” built up by all of the instances of Canadian weather that we have on record. • As the instances change, the climate changes. (If global warming continues the Canadian days (weather) will get hotter, and the Canadian climate will support tropical plants.) • Every time you (and I) (and students in English medium courses in India) talk, it’s an instance of English. • All the instances of English talk since, say the year 700? Have built the “big picture” of global English. • More locally, all the instances of English talk in Canada have built the “big picture” of Canadian English. • Every instance of a Canadian doctor talking with a clinician has helped build the “tighter picture (register)” of Canadian medical English. • Every instance of s/he is helping (or failing) to build an English that responds to our current social values.

17. The dimensions of Systemic Functional Linguistics

18. Trinocular Vision “No man is an island” • Nor is any stratum a thing unto itself. • A one dimensional view just won’t do. • Each stratum exists as a set of relationships with the strata above and below. • Segmental phonemes, for example, exist as a construal relationship with WORDS in lexicogrammar. • /k/ is a phoneme class because it helps construe the word cat in the stratum above. • /k/ is a phoneme class because it can be realized as a recognizable phonetic class of sounds in the stratum below: [k]. • Segmental phonemes exist as a realization relationship with phonetic classes, e.g. IPA.

19. One dimensional vision(for example SEMANTICS)

20. Trinocular Vision: Central eye on semanticslexicogrammatical realizations

21. Central eye on lexicogrammar:phonological realizations

22. Central eye on phonologyphonetic realizations

23. Central eye on phoneticsInstantial sound realizations, described through physics or anatomy.

24. Ape – Human Dialogues in English

25. Two skulls From Benson and Greaves Functional Dimensions of Ape-Human Discoursehttp://www.equinoxpub.com/books/showbook.asp?bkid=5

26. So what is this a picture of? • Brain sizes. 3/3 and 1/3. • All sorts of biology is relevant. In this case inter-species overlap. Bonobos and humans have 99.7% of their genes in common. We diverged only about 6 million years ago. • A bonobo brain is HUGE in terms of brain – body mass ratio. (Humans are right off the scale.)‏ • Social context. The position represents dialogue. • We work with enculturated bonobos. • How Kanzi happened.

27. Marks (and sound) in a social contextHow Kanzi happened • Using a keyboard that “spoke”, Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh was trying to teach Matata, Kanzi’s 30 year old wild caught mother, WORDS. • Then, so it was thought, Matata could do SENTENCES. • But Matata didn’t like her WORD lessons and didn't learn WORDS much less do SENTENCES. • Infant Kanzi was a pain in the neck. Always in the way. • But when Mata was sent away Kanzi spontaneously used the keyboard to communicate with Sue! • Sue said “Skip the grammar lessons. Give him a warm cultural context and the keyboard.” The rest is history.

28. PHONEMES are abstract classes—and so are GRAPHEMES We are all familiar with the English PHONEME and GRAPHEME systems. But to make their abstract nature perhaps a bit clearer, here is an alternative GRAPHEME system. It was developed by Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and used by bonobo apes at the Language Research Center. There are 384 GRAPHEMES. These directly realize a set of 384 LEXICOGRAMMATICAL WORD choices. The next slide shows a number of the tokens: When one GRAPHEME token is pressed, a computer speaker produces the sound of its word.

29. This is part of one of three panels of GRAPHEME tokens

30. The lexigram system, which can be drawn on by humans or enculturated bonobos • These lexigrams constitute a SYSTEM: a choice must be made from the 384 terms in the system • It is a “flat” system: There is no rank scale. In formal terms, /coffee/ simply means not any of the other 383 choices. It is not a graphological WORD consisting of LETTERS. It is the grapheme /coffee/. Full stop. • Like other phoneme or grapheme systems, the lexigram system exists as a set of construal and realizational relationships with the strata above and below. • Looking upwards, the lexigram /coffee/ construes the word coffee in the lexicogrammar. • Looking down, the word coffee is written on the computer keyboard as one of 384 grapheme choices recognized by the size color and shape of their graphetic realizations, but each word is spoken by the computer speaker as a string of English phonemes recognized by their phonetic characteristics.

31. Lexigrams: the graphemes /orange/ /Mary/ /melon/ /coffee/ and graphetic realizations

32. These graphemes are classes • Now, here is evidence that a GRAPHEME is a class, with widely differing allographs at the PHON/GRAPHETIC stratum. In the video on the next slide Panbanisha is learning how to produce her allographs for the grapheme [coffee] Click on the image in the next slide.

33. Allographs of /coffee/—click below

34. Examples of language genre and music genre

35. Panbanisha, Sue, and Peter Gabriel co-construct a speech genre (Bakhtin 1986) A “jam session”. The goal is for Panbanisha to make music at the keyboard interactively with Peter Gabriel The musical interaction is inherently dialogic The stages in the surrounding conversations: SONG TOPIC NEGOTIATION: Panbanisha takes the lead in deciding on a song topic SONG PRODUCTION: Panbanisha plays the song (with verbal FACILITATION by Sue and Peter where necessary) EVALUATION: Sue and Peter appraise the song CODA: Sue and Peter discuss its significance

36. 1. Ideational work: Re-presenting sense experience as symbol. FIRST ORDER (Dealing with “the world”)

37. 1) Ideational: An ape and a piano Peter Gabriel brought three members of his band to interact with the bonobo apes (99.6% of our genes) Kanzi and Panbanisha and their caregiver Dr. Sue Savage Rumbaugh. He presented them with an electronic keyboard. Here is a clip of Panbanisha and the keyboard near the beginning of the first day: (Next slide)

38. Panbanisha and keyboard:Day 1.

39. What happens next: 3 days of multi-modal bilingual trialogue The media: Human voices Computer speaker emitting male English words Arbitrary Graphic computer keys Ape voice The languages: English; Western music The three participants: Panbanisha (bonobo) Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (human) Peter Gabriel (human)

40. FIELD OF DISCOURSEGoal directed social action. Not the same thing as subject.“What am I?” is a good test. If our goal is to make music, I’m a musician.

41. Ideational strata

42. Bending the Field of Discourse Panbanisha makes a computer say Orange, Banana. Opening field: Caregiving: dining: dining on fruit: dining on orange and banana Peter and Sue bend the field through qualification: Song about oranges and bananas The field is now music. oranges and bananas together designate a class of songs. Other “bends” Grape Song Grooming Song

43. 2: Interpersonal work: Enacting social Relationships FIRST ORDER (Dealing with “the world”)

45. From Halliday-Greaves, Pg 50:[declarative]:[key] system(tone 5 has a second instance with Sue speaking)

46. Rank Scale: EXCHANGE:TURN:MOVE“Grooming Song” EXCHANGE Upper case – sound from a LEXIGRAM Sue: QUIET. Quiet things, and grooming is a QUIET THING. It's a quiet thing. Peter: That's true. Let's start it. Sue whisper: Quiet. Can you play a grooming song. Peter: Can you play a grooming song? Sue: whisper: I want to hear a grooming song. Play a real quiet grooming song. Pan: GROOM. Pan (piano): 2 NOTES (followed by jam session)

47. “Grooming Song” exchange (Upper case -- /*/1 QUIET=computer saying the word in male voice with falling contour when Sue presses the lexigram key) Sue: /*/1 QUIET /*/5 quiet things // 5 ^ and */grooming is a /*/ 1QUIET /*/1THING // 5 ^ it's a */quiet thing // Peter: // 1 ^that's */true //1 ^ let's */ start it // Sue whisper: // 1 quiet // 2 can you / play a / grooming */ song // Peter: // 2 can you / play a / grooming */ song // Sue: whisper: //1 I want to /hear a */grooming song. //1 Play a /real /quiet /grooming */song // Pan: // 1 GROOM // (Panbanisha presses lexigram) Pan (piano): 2 NOTES

48. Grooming Song exchange

49. Bottom line: The sight, touch and sound of the keyboard have been re-presented as components of Panbanisha’s new social role as a musician involved in a jam session. Language? Well, the trialogue didn’t take place in German! Or Chinese! Pambanisha was, by selecting and pressing computer lexigrams keys, producing sounds that were English. The clauses to which she responded were English clauses. The semantic network – the meanings which changed her from a disinterested “couch potato” in front of the keyboard into a full participation in a jam session was enacted through choices in the English mood system. And the culture which was created through this, although a unique bonobo-human culture, was composed of English speakers.

50. 3: Textual work: Weaving ideational and interpersonal meaning together into message. SECOND ORDER (Dealing with the first order)