ABSTRACT

As established by Halliday (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014),1 systemic functional linguistics (SFL) models language in social context and recognises three general social functions for which language is used: (a) enacting our social relationships; (b) representing our experience to each other and (c) organising our enactments and representations as meaningful text. These are known as the ‘metafunctions’: the interpersonal metafunction enacts relationships; the ideational metafunction represents experience and the textual metafunction organises text. When discussing the three metafunctions, Halliday (1978: 113) points out that ‘the textual function has an enabling function with respect to the other two; it is only in combination with textual meanings that ideational and interpersonal meanings are actualized’. The textual metafunction is realised by the choices a speaker or a writer makes in combining the ideas and reality that he or she wishes to express (ideational), along with the relationship that he or she hopes to project and develop (interpersonal). The organisation of the ideational and the interpersonal plays a key role in developing what it is we mean and how we relate to those with whom we want to interact through language. Halliday (1977: 181) states that the function of the textual metafunction is:

specifically that of creating a text, of making the difference between language in the abstract and language in use in other words, it is through the semantic options of the textual component that language comes to be relevant to its environment.