SEMANTICS OF PROCESS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR BY M.A.K. HALLIDAY

Abstract

In modern linguistics, we can observe the proliferation of usage-based theories that emphasize the need to study linguistic phenomena in con(text). In this regard, functional approaches are being reconsidered, in particular the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) proposed by M.A.K. Halliday. The article attempts to theoretically generalize the fundamental tenets of the Systemic Functional Grammar with respect to the interpretation of the semantics of the process and its types. It is indicative that within the SFG the text itself is treated as a process of creating meanings in context. Thus, the study of the semiosis of the process can be considered as the study of the semiosis of the text. The process represented by a clause is understood as the way of constructing human experience, of imposing a linguistic order on the experience of infinite variations and the flow of events. The grammatical system that ensures this through transferring the action onto the object is transitivity. M.A.C. Halliday identifies six main types of process realized in different types of clauses with a distinct functionality: material, mental, relational, existential, behavioral, and verbal. The processes of different types testify to the variability of constructing experience in text and, accordingly, to the specifics of the realization of the ideational metafunction of language. A clause forms a certain semantic configuration of a process – a figure that includes the following variables: the process itself, which unfolds in time, the participants of the process, and the circumstances of the process. The peculiarity of this model of the process is that the process is expressed by verbs or verb groups of different aspectual types, each type of process is characterized by different types of subjects as obligatory components of the model, and typical circumstances of the process as the optional components. Thus, the SFG theory is the basis for studying the unfolding of different types of processes in text, which contributes to the constructing human experience as a pivotal linguistic metafunction.