ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to indicate how systemic functional linguistics (SFL) has been applied in critical discourse analysis. It discusses some of the objections to the use of linguistic analysis and argues for a blending of methods in appropriate studies. The theoretical approach in SFL focuses on the meaning-making resources of language within specific social and cultural contexts. Since its earliest manifestations, SFL has been concerned with social action or 'what people do with language'. SFL uses the term lexicogrammar to encapsulate the idea that vocabulary is inextricably linked to grammatical choices that are available in a language. The SFL theory of context appears deceptively simple and limited, being based on the notions of field, tenor and mode. Lexis has also played an important part in critiques of environmental discourse and the ways in which 'actual and metaphorical space' are discursively constructed.
