Table 1 SFL in relation to other functional approaches to language typology
From: A survey of studies in systemic functional language description and typology
Dimensions | Approaches | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
SFL | WCF | FDG | RRG | |
theory and description | an elegant metatheory; a clear distinction between theory and cross-linguistic tendencies and generalisations; emphasis on theoretically empowered typology (see e.g. Caffarel et al. 2004: Ch. 1) | no explicit metatheory; a tendency to represent typological generalisations & descriptive motifs as theory | a conflation of theory and generalisation of the organisation of grammatical structure (cf. Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008) | a conflation of theory and generalisation of the organisation of grammatical structure (cf. Van Valin 2000, 2007) |
functional orientation | systematic analysis of metafunctional diversity; functional representation of structure; the relative natural relationship between form/structure and meaning; functional variation in language | metafunctional diversity is implicit and could be inferred from analysis and discussions; polyfunctionality of lexicogrammatical forms (see e.g. Laury 2008); the natural relationship between form and meaning (see e.g. Haiman 1985) | unification of metafunctional realisations in grammar into one multidemsional representation of the clause; functional representation of structure; the relative natural relationship between form/structure and meaning | unification of metafunctional realisations in grammar into one multidemsional representation of the clause; functional representation of structure; the relative natural relationship between form/structure and meaning |
axial focus | primacy is given to the paradigmatic axis or systems; a systematic analysis of structure and forms as realisation of systems and/or features | varied perspectives, with some studies entering the description from systems (e.g. Comrie 1976; Bybee et al. 1994) and others from particular lexicogrammatical forms (see e.g. Laury 2008); a conscious avoidance of analysing structure (although syntactic notions are employed as metalanguage) | focus on syntagmatic axis or structure | focus on syntagmatic axis or structure |
typological coverage | equal emphasis on theoretically comprehensive description of individual languages; and typological generalisations across languages, although in practice research has been skewed to the former until 2000’s. (see Representativeness: areal and genetic coverage) | emphasis on typological generalisations and universal principles and tendencies across languages; description of individual languages with the aim of making typological claims | postulates typological adequacy as a theoretical principle by setting up a model to account for all languages; description of individual languages with the aim of making typological claims | postulates typological adequacy as a theoretical principle by setting up a model to account for all languages; description of individual languages with the aim of making typological claims |
Grammaticalisation [diachrony vrs. synchrony] | an elaborate theory of language evolution (i.e. semogenesis) and indeterminacy in language (e.g. Halliday and Matthiessen 1999); Halliday 2008), but grammaticalisation is only beginning to be given attention in empirical studies (e.g. Mwinlaaru 2015) | a rich body of research on grammaticalisation since the 1980’s and detailed documentation of universal tendencies and mechanisms involved in grammaticalisation (e.g. Heine and Kuteva 2002a, b) | research on grammaticalisation as part of typological description of language (e.g. Mackenzie 2009; Hengeveld 2011) | research on grammaticalisation as part of typological description of language (Kailuweit et al. 2008) |
data and analysis | empirical typology based on a large sample of languages, focus on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of texts from comparable registers across languages | empirical typology based on a large sample of languages, focus on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of texts from comparable registers across languages | empirical typology based on a large sample of languages; qualitative and quantitative analysis of discourse phenomena | empirical typology based on a large sample of languages |
goals & applications of typology | ‘a human sememe project’ (Matthiessen 2015c: 2), profiling a multilingual meaning potential (Matthiessen et al. 2008); application in various contexts such as (machine) translation, language education, computational settings, healthcare and clinical contexts, discourse analysis etc. | discovery of differences and similarities in languages & testing theories that explain these (Bybee et al. 1994); no explicit goals of application (but see Bybee 2008); discourse analysis is one dimension of language research rather than an application of linguistic descriptions (see e.g. Ono et al. 2000, 2012). | building and testing a theory of universal grammar that is typologically empowered; computational implementation, discourse analysis (Hengeveld and Mackenzie 2008; Butler 2003a, b) | building and testing a theory of universal grammar that is typologically empowered (Van Valin 2000, 2007) |