Given And New

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 529-30):

But the "Theme + Rheme" configuration becomes a message only when paired with another one, that of "Given + New". This construes a piece of information from the complementary point of view, as something having news value — something the listener is being invited to attend to. It may not contain anything the listener has not heard before; a great deal of "news" is totally familiar, being simply contrasted or even reiterated. On the other hand, the entire message may consist of unknown information, for example the first clause of a piece of fiction. 

But the message is construed along prototypical lines as an equilibrium of the given and the new, with a climax in the form of a focal point of information: 'this is to be the focus of your attention'. This focal point usually comes at the end; but (unlike the Theme + Rheme) the Given + New structure is not signalled, in English, by word order — it is signalled by intonation, and specifically by pitch prominence, the point of maximum perturbation (falling, rising or complex) in the intonation contour. The principle behind this is clear: if the Theme always came first, and the New always came last, there would be no possibility of combining them; whereas one powerful form of a message — powerful because highly marked — is that in which the two are mapped on to one another, as in no wonder they were annoyed (where the focus is on the interpersonal theme no wonder).

Theme And Rheme

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 529):

From the speaker's point of view, a piece of information has a specific point of departure; the Prague scholars referred to this as the "Theme". The Theme, in English, always includes one element that has an experiential function, typically a participant in the process; it may include other elements as well, for example an interpersonal expression of modality if the speaker is thematising his/ her own point of view. One way of signalling what is thematic is by putting it first in the clause, as is done in English, where everything up to and including the first experiential element constitutes the speaker's chosen point of departure; for example But surely time is defined as that which you can't turn back?, where the Theme is but surely time. Here the speaker is construing a message around the theme of 'what I'm saying is contrary to what went before' (but); 'it's my opinion, and I'd like to challenge you with it' (surely); and 'the starting point is the topic of time'. The remainder of the clause constitutes the body of the message, labelled grammatically as the "Rheme".

Textual Cohesion And Structure

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 528-9):

Since these resources are oriented towards discourse, many of the "textual" systems in any language have a domain potentially higher than the clause and clause complex; they set up relationships that create semantic cohesion, and these ate not restricted by the limitations of grammatical structure. 

But they also contribute a critical dimension to the overall grammar of the clause. In this guise, the clause functions as a quantum of information; it is construed as a message, with a range of possible structures providing for different interpretations according to the discourse environment in which it occurs. 

These structures have been less fully described than those of the other metafunctions; they were brought to the notice of grammarians by Mathesius and his colleagues of the Prague school in the first half of the present century. But it seems that one typical way of construing the clause as a message is as a combination of two perspectives, that of the speaker and that of the listener (the latter, of course, being also as modelled for the listener by the speaker).

The Textual Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 528):

The "textual" metafunction is the name we give to the systematic resources a language must have for creating discourse: for ensuring that each instance of text makes contact with its environment. The "environment" includes both the context of situation and other instances of text. Relative to the other metafunctions, therefore, the textual metafunction appears in an enabling role; without its resources, neither ideational nor interpersonal constructs would make sense.

Interpersonal Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 527):

Interpersonal meaning is mapped on to ideational meaning at all points from the most micro to the most macro: from modality and speech function in the clause (or even features built in to the morphology of the word, like the diminutives characteristic of many languages) to settings affecting the whole of a particular register, like the aura of power and distance that we associate with the language of bureaucracy. These are the various ways in which language functions as a mode of action; and these meanings, no less than ideational ones, are brought into existence by the grammar.

Enacting Networks Of Social Relationships

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 527):

Some particular interpersonal colouring may inform the whole of an individual speaker's interaction with another person; and because human societies are inherently hierarchical, the interpersonal component of the grammar in many languages enacts networks of social relationships with varying degrees of inequality and of distance. Thus there may be regular lexicogrammatical variants used to maintain different alignments of speaker and listener, and even of third parties, on vectors of power and familiarity; such forms may be located at one point in each grammatical structure (for example in the endings of the verb) or dispersed prosodically throughout the wording of the clause. 

But even in a language such as English, where there are no such systematic speech styles institutionalised in the grammar, there is always some functional variation along these lines: we have no difficulty in recognising what are the more formal and what are the more informal variants among different samples of spoken or written discourse.

The Distribution Of Interpersonal Meaning

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 527):

Unlike ideational meanings, which tend to be located at definable locations in the grammatical structure, interpersonal meanings tend to be strung throughout the discourse, by an accumulation of grammatical and lexical features or by other devices such as voice quality and intonation contours. This signals the fact that interpersonal meanings are more diffuse: they relate to the figure as a whole, rather than to one of its elements; or to a whole turn in the dialogue, or even to some more extended passage of the discourse.

Other Interpersonal Resources

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 526-7):

Modality is a rich resource for speakers to intrude their own views into the discourse: their assessments of what is likely or typical, their judgments of the rights and wrongs of the situation and of where other people stand in this regard. But there are numerous other kinds of interpersonal meaning constructed by the resources of the grammar. These include comments about how desirable or plausible or self-evident something is, expressions of attitude in referring to persons and objects, sets of words with similar experiential meaning but distinguished interpersonally by connotation (sometimes called "purr words" and "snarl words"), and numerous forms of personal address and reference (kinship terms, personal names, honorifics, endearments, insults and the like).

Modulation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 526):

The latter [derived from the polarity of proposals] occupy the dimensions of "obligation" and "readiness", readiness including both inclination and ability; for example,

They ought to clean this place up. People will leave it so untidy.

— They can't; they haven't got the equipment. They're not supposed to clean it anyway.

— You mean they won't. But someone must. Can we?

— I don't see whey we shouldn't. Will you help?

Although these are derived from the sense of proposals ('you are required/supposed/allowed; I am able/willing'), they are not restricted to clauses having these speech functions; obligation and readiness are construed by the grammar propositionally and hence are used freely with third persons. But they still represent the judgments of speaker or listener on the obligations or inclinations involved (he ought to help, she will help).

Modalisation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 526):

The former [deriving from the polarity of propositions] are along the dimensions of "probability" and "usuality", the first being the more elaborated of the two (because more arguable); for example,

That was a snake.

— It wasn't. It can't possibly have been a snake.

— Couldn't it? Don't you think so? I think it might have been.

— It probably wasn't. But snakes can appear round here.

All of these represent probability except the final can which means 'sometimes' (usuality). Note that it is always the judgment of speaker or listener that is represented as a choice of modality, not that of any third party (this is one of the boundaries drawn between 'me-&-you' and 'the rest').

The Space Between Positive And Negative Polarity

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 526):

Languages differ considerably in their construction of this space, and in the extent to which they interpret it grammatically. In English, there are four distinct grammatical traverses between 'yes' and 'no', two deriving from the polarity of propositions ('it is/ it isn't') and two from the polarity of proposals ('do! / don't!').

Polarity And Modality

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 525-6):

The mood system constructs the clause as a move in an argument: either as a "proposition" (statement or question) or as a "proposal" (offer or command). The system provides scope for argument by incorporating an opposition of 'on' or 'off': each clause assigns either positive or negative polarity. Every proposal or proposition selects one or the other: either that was a snake or that wasn't a snake, either catch it! or don't catch it! But at the same time the interpersonal grammar goes much further, it rejects a simple polarity of 'yes' and 'no', opening up a broad semantic space in between. This is the area of "modality", where the interactants present different aspects of their own judgments and opinions, exploring the validity of what is being said and typically locating it somewhere between the positive and negative poles.

The Basic Person Distinction Constructed By Language

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 525):

Note in this connection that the basic distinction constructed by language is not, as sometimes claimed, that between 'me' and 'the rest'; it is that between 'me-&-you' on the one hand, and the rest — the 'third party' — on the other. This distinction is coded in the grammar at many places, for example in the system of modality; there can be no "first person" unless there is a "second person" with whom these roles can be alternately acted out.

The Interpersonal As Language In Its "First And Second Person" Guise

 Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 525):

If the ideational metafunction is language in its "third person" guise, the interpersonal is language in its "first and second person" guise; the interaction of a 'me' and a 'you'. The 'me' and the 'you' are of course constructed in language; they have no existence outside the social semiotic. Once constructed, me and you then become a part of experience and can be referred to alongside the him, the her and the it; but note that (unlike their interpersonal meaning, which does not change) their ideational meaning changes every time there is a change of speaker (this is what makes me and you so difficult for children to learn).

The Construction Of Speech-Functional Variation

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 525):

Choosing a particular speech function is, obviously, only one step in a dialogue; what the grammar creates, through the system of "mood", is the potential for arguing, for an ongoing dynamic exchange of speech roles among the interactants in a conversation. The mood system, together with other systems associated with it, constructs a great range of speech-functional variation; and since in principle any ideational meaning can be mapped on to any interpersonal meaning, this makes it possible to construe any aspect of experience in any dialogic form.

The Commodity Being Exchanged

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 524-5):

If the commodity being exchanged is goods-&-services, then the action that is given or demanded is typically a non-verbal one: what is being exchanged is something other than a construction of meanings, and the meanings serve to bring the exchange about. In principle the listener need not say anything at all; but listeners usually do, typically by reversing the role, responding to an offer with a command and to a command with an offer

If on the other hand the commodity being exchanged is information, then this is in fact made of meaning; the speaker's action, and that of the listener if responding to a question, is bound to be a verbal one, because here language is not only the means of carrying out the exchange, it is also the nature of the exchange itself.

The Primary Speech Functions

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 524):

Grammatically, each time [a speaker] says a clause, he is not only construing a process but also, unless he makes it logically dependent on another clause, acting out a speech function; and this embodies two simultaneous choices. The speaker is either giving or else requiring the other person to give — that is, demanding. And the commodity being given or demanded may be either "goods-&-services" or "information". Each of the four combinations defines one of the primary speech functions:

Speech Function: Enacting And Assigning Roles

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 524):

The most immediate way in which we act, grammatically, is through our choice of speech function. One kind of speech function is a command; this is obviously a way of getting someone to do something, but we tend to think of it as being in this respect untypical. However all speech functions are modes of action, whether command or offer, question or statement, or any of their innumerable combinations and subcategories. All dialogue is a process of exchanging meaning, in which the speaker is enacting, at any one time, a particular interpersonal relationship, including his own role and the role he is assigning to the listener (i.e. he is specifying a network of interpretations for his own and the others' behaviour).

Enacting Interpersonal Relationships

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 523-4):

When we say that the grammar enacts interpersonal relationships, we mean relationships of all kinds from the transient exchange of speech roles in temporary transactional encounters (How are you? — Good, thanks; and you? — Coming along. Now what can I do for you?) to the enduring familial and other networks that constitute the structure of society. We tend to be less aware of this metafunction of language, at least in more learned contexts; partly because, as adults in a literate culture, we are conditioned to thinking of meaning purely in ideational terms (language as a means of "expressing thought"), and partly because it is less obvious that talking is a way of doing — of acting on others (and through them, on our shared environment) and in the process, constructing society. But the interpersonal and the ideational are the two facets of our everchanging social semiotic.

Interpersonal Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 523):

Our concern in this book is primarily with what we have called the "ideation base", the systems of meaning into which, through language, human beings construe their collective and individual experience. Usually when we talk about the linguistic "construction of reality" this is the aspect of reality that comes to mind. But at the same time as construing experience — in the same breath, so to speak — they are also, through language, enacting their interpersonal relationships; and this interpersonal component of meaning is no less part of what is constituted for us as "reality". If the ideational component is language as a mode of reflection, the interpersonal component is language as a mode of action; and reality consists as much in what we do as in what we think.

Each Language Construes Experience In Its Own Way

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 523):

We have outlined the picture from the point of view of English, but doing so as far as possible in a way that would enable the relevant questions to be raised for other languages. In the last resort each language construes experience in its own way — has its own "characterology", as the Prague linguists expressed it. But every language embodies a working, and workable, schedule of compromises, that taken all together constitute its speakers' construction of reality.

Construing Experience

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 522):

In its ideational metafunction, language construes the human experience — the human capacity for experiencing — into a massive powerhouse of meaning. It does so by creating a multidimensional semantic space, highly elastic, in which each vector forms a line of tension (the vectors are what are represented in our system networks as "systems"). Movement within this space sets up complementarities of various kinds: alternative, sometimes contradictory, constructions of experience, indeterminacies, ambiguities and blends, so that a grammar, as a general theory of experience, is a bundle of uneasy compromises. No one dimension of experience is represented in an ideal form, because this would conflict destructively with all the others; instead, each dimension is fudged so that it can coexist with those that intersect with it.

Taxis And Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 521-2):

Similarly in a projecting relationship, the two elements in a verbal projection are typically equal in status, while those of a mental projection are unequal. This is not surprising: since you can hear what a person says, you give the wording the full status of a direct experience, as in Mary said, "I will wait here for you tomorrow"; whereas you cannot observe what a person thinks, so this is more likely to be construed as dependent on the process that projects it, as in Mary thought/ decided she would wait there for him the next day. 

In the first, the deictic standpoint is that of the sayer, namely Mary; what she said is quoted as "direct speech". In the second, the deictic standpoint is that of the person speaking; what Mary thought is reported as "indirect thought". Again, it is always possible to report speech — and even to quote thought, with the speaker acting as an omniscient narrator; but those combinations are less favoured in everyday English discourse.

Taxis And Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 521):

In principle, any particular type of expansion or projection can be interpreted in either way, either as "paratactic" or as "hypotactic"; but in fact there is some degree of partial association: certain combinations are favoured, and others correspondingly disfavoured. For example, in English, when one process is construed as a simple restatement of, or addition to, another, the two are likely to have equal status; whereas where one is seen as enhancing the other they are usually unequal — a means is secondary to what has been achieved by it, a cause is secondary to its effect. (Note that these are overall quantitative tendencies; in any one instance the choice may go either way.)

Taxis

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 521):

Probably some such system of logical relationships between processes will be found in all languages, though as always there is great variation in the formal resources that ace deployed, and also in the systematic semantic organisation of the relationships themselves. In English, and many other languages, the grammar makes a systematic distinction in the relative status that is accorded to the two processes entering into such a logical nexus. Either the two are construed as being equal in status, or one is construed as being dependent on the other. In principle, any particular type of expansion or projection can be interpreted in either way, either as "paratactic" or as "hypotactic";

The Two Levels Of Projection

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 521):

In projection, one process is used to construe another one, such that the latter becomes a representation of what someone says or thinks. The types of process that have this power of projection are the verbal and the mental processes: he says (that...), he told (her to ...), she thinks (that...), she wanted (him to ...). 

Thus the projection operates at either of the two strata of the content plane: either that of the wording, where the projection is by a verbal process, or at that of the meaning, where it is by a mental process. 

Because the grammar can project in this way, semiotic events, both those which are externalised as sayings and those which are internalised as thoughts, are brought within the overall domain of the phenomena of experience.

The Three Types Of Expansion

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 520-1):

Conceptually perhaps the simplest way of expanding a process is by elaborating on it: saying it over again (or something very like it, with repetition as the limiting case), or else exemplifying it, or clarifying it in some other way. The grammar represents this relationship symbolically in English by prosodic means: the same intonation pattern is repeated, for example we're shut out; they won't let us in. But since this does not appear in writing, various purely written symbols are used instead, typically i.e., e.g. and viz.

The second type of expansion consists in extending one process by construing another one as an addition to it (with 'and' as the limiting case); or as an alternative to it, a replacement for it, or as some form of reservation or contrast. Here the grammar typically employs conjunctions, like and, or, but, instead, besides. 

The third type of expansion is one of enhancing the first process by another one setting up a specific semantic relationship, of which the principal ones are time, cause, condition, concession, and means, Here again the grammar deploys a range of different conjunctions, which mark either the enhancing clause (when, because, by, though, if and so on) or the one that is being enhanced (e.g. then 'at that time', then 'in that case', so, thus, yet ).

The Difference Between The Two Kinds Of Logical Relationship

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 520):

Two kinds of logical relationship are construed by the grammar in this way. One is that of "expansion", in which the two processes are of the same order of experience and the second one is interpreted as in some respect expanding on the first. The other is that of "projection", in which the second process is construed as belonging to a different order of experience: it is projected, by the first one, on to the semiotic plane. Each of these defines a complex region of semantic space.

The Structure Type Engendered By The Logical System

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 520):

The changes that constitute our experience are not all independent of one another. On the contrary; our experience is that one thing leads to another, and there is in principle no limit to an experiential chain. But the exact nature of the relationship may vary from one transition to another; so the grammar construes the relationship between processes dyadically, in the form of a nexus between a pair of clauses. The first process may have a second process related to it, by a relationship such as sequence in time, or cause and effect; this in turn may have another one related to it, either by the same relationship or by a different one — in either case, the relationship is construed as holding between the members of a pair. So the logical system, within the ideational metafunction, engenders a different kind of linguistic structure from that of the experiential system. In the logical world, the parts are not constituents of an organic configuration, like the process, participants and circumstances of the clause. They are elements standing to each other in a potentially iterative relationship; and each element represents an entire process.

The Logical Metafunction

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 519-20):

Turning now to the logical part of the grammar's ideational resources: this is the part that is concerned not with individual processes but with the relation between one process aid another. In calling this "logical" we are using the term in the sense of natural language logic: that is, grammatical logic, not formal logic — although, of course, this is the source from which formal logic is ultimately derived.

The Significance Of The Distinction Between Direct And Indirect Participants

Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 518-9):

The line between direct and indirect participants is a fuzzy one, and sometimes what seems to be the same role in the process can be construed in either way, for example pairs like:

where the winner, Hamlet, her bicycle and the farmers appear first as direct and then as indirect participants. Here the grammar is in fact using the structural resource of plus or minus preposition to construe a different kind of contrast, having to do with status in the message. 

But the distinction is significant because, as we saw above, such "circumstantial" elements tend also to function as qualifications not of the process but of some entity that is itself a participant: as well as the ice lies thinly on the water, with thinly and on the water as circumstantial elements of the clause, we have the thin ice (lying) on the water, where these have now become modifiers of ice — and then the thin layer of ice on the water. 

And since the prepositional phrase has a nominal group inside it, this opens up the possibility of further expansion, like the ice on the water in the pond by the oak trees in the corner of the wood. Thus incorporating the circumstantial element into the representation of a participant does not merely add one feature to the specification; it allows more or less indefinite scope, particularly in combination with the incorporation of an entire process. (We have already pointed out that the prepositional phrase is in fact a miniaturised clause; so the two really constitute a single resource, that of using a process to specify a particular class of entity.) This potential was crucial to the development of science and mathematics.