Language, Language Functions, and Social Context

Prof. Dr. Tri Wiratno, M.A.

Prof. Drs. Riyadi Santosa, M.Ed., Ph.D.

 

REDEFINING LANGUAGE

A language is a means of communication that is organized in the form of lingual units, such as words, groups of words, clauses, and sentences that are expressed both orally and in writing. There are many definitions of language, and this definition is only one of them. You can compare this definition with the following definitions: language is a system of human communication expressed through the arrangement of sounds or written expressions that are structured to form larger units, such as morphemes, words, and sentences, which are elaborated as: "the system of human communication utilizing a structured arrangement of sounds (or written representation) to form larger units, e.g., morphemes, words, sentences" (Richards, Platt & Weber, 1985: 153).

In this world, there are thousands of languages, and each language has its system called grammar. There is a grammar for Indonesian, a grammar for English, a grammar for Japanese, etc.

Although communication activities can be carried out by means other than language, in principle, humans communicate using language. In this context, the language is used in human language, not animal language. In some instances, animals can communicate with each other by using animal language. What is being discussed here is not the language of animals, but humans, and all the words "language" in this book refers to "human language."

 Language, in the sense of Functional Systemic Linguistics (SFL), is a form of social semiotics working in a situational and cultural context, which is used both orally and in writing. In this view, language is a construct that is formed through functions and systems simultaneously. Two important things need to be considered. First, systemically, language is a discourse or text consisting of several systems of linguistic units that work hierarchically simultaneously from a lower system: phonology/graphology, to a higher system: lexico-grammatical or lexico-grammar, text structure, and semantics Discourse. Each level cannot be separated because each level is an organism that has an interrelated role in holistically realizing the meaning of a discourse (Halliday, 1985; Halliday, 1994). Second, functionally, language is used to express a purpose or function of social processes in the context of situations and cultural contexts (Halliday, 1994; Butt, Fahey, Feez, Spinks, & Yalop, 2000). 

Therefore, in social semiotics, language is several social semions symbolizing the reality of experience and logic, social reality, and semiotic/symbolic reality. In this concept, language is a realm of expression and potential meaning. Meanwhile, the situational context and cultural context are sources of meaning.

In its form, language is always in the form of text. As for what is meant by text is a lingual unit that expresses meaning contextually. Here, the term "text" is considered the same as "discourse," The lingual units can be a word, a group of words, a clause, or a collection of paragraphs. If someone wants to express something, it will use a particular form of text. With that text, it will achieve its desired goal. To accommodate and become a means to convey its goals, it strives for the text to contain relevant language forms. The forms are none other than the linguistic system in the text. If the objectives conveyed are different, then the text used is additional, and the chosen language forms are also various. Finally, the text created will be able to represent that person.

Regarding the principle that language should always be considered as a text, Fowler (1986) asserts that for text analysis, analysis can be carried out not only on linguistic texts but also other texts (such as literary texts), both factual texts and fictional texts (see also Martin, 1985; Martin, 1992). Factual texts are texts created based on actual events, while fictional texts are fictitious texts, namely texts created from the world of imagination.

 

LANGUAGE FUNCTION

 Language has three main functions, namely ideational functions, interpersonal functions, and textual functions. These three functions are called meta-functional functions, and the three functions represent different realities. Under the ideational function, language is used to express physical-biological reality and the interpretation and representation of experience. Under the interpersonal function, language expresses social reality and relates to the interaction between speakers/writers and listeners/readers. Under the textual function, language represents semiotic reality or the reality of symbols and connects to the way the text is created in context (Matthiessen, 1992/1995:6; Martin, 1992).

These three functions do not stand alone independently. All three are one meta-function unit. Therefore, a linguistic utterance, for Example, a clause, carries out these three functions at once. In other words, even though there is only one clause, that one clause must be seen from its capacity, which has three functions at once. (See the description in the "You may go home now" Example below).

In other words, language is a construction of physical/biological reality, social reality, and symbol reality, which together become the foundation on which ideational functions, interpersonal functions, and textual functions work. In physical/biological reality, language is used to report content or intent due to observations made by speakers/writers. What is reported is whatever is in and around the speaker/writer. In social reality, language is used to perform the roles performed by speakers/writers towards listeners/readers. This role can be seen in the fact that a language is a tool for establishing and at the same time establishing social relations. In a semiotic/symbolic reality, language expresses the contents (results of these observations) through lingual forms (text) following the purpose of the disclosure. In this framework, there is a relevance between the content and the form used to express it. 

As an illustration, Examples (1-1) and (1-2) can show that two clauses that are only distinguished by the use of "may" and "must" have very striking differences in meaning.

 (1-1) You may go home now.

 This clause expresses the three functions within the framework of the three realities simultaneously. With this clause in physical/biological reality, the speaker intends to convey what he experiences with the listener as his speech partner. In social reality, the same clause shows a social relationship that the speaker has a role (which is superior to the speech partner), and with that role, the speaker gives leeway to his interlocutor to go home.

 The quality of the social relationship between the speaker and his interlocutor can be depicted that the speech partner can use the leeway given by the speaker with this clause. Whether the speech partner will go home or not depends on the decision of the speech partner itself, not on coercion by the speaker. The word "may" in the clause indicates a choice about going home or not. In a semiotic/symbolic reality, with the same clause, the speaker uses a lingual form in a clause that allows the content desired by the speaker to be appropriately channeled to his interlocutor.

 If the word "may" is replaced with "must," there is no relevance between the content and the role indicating flexibility or choice. The term "must" contains the impression of coercion or pressure. Therefore, the analysis of the three functions will undoubtedly be different if the clause reads as presented in Example (1-2).

 (1-2) You must go home now.

 It could be that the physical/biological reality between Examples (1-1) and (1-2) is the same, so the content revealed in the two clauses is also the same. However, in terms of social reality, in Example (1-2), the speaker uses his superior role to force the interlocutor to go home; unlike in Example (1-1), the speaker's superior role is used to provide leeway in the form of choice, namely to go home or not to go home. From the side of semiotic reality or symbols, the clause containing "must" was chosen to show the relevance between the intended content and the superior role that produces coercion.

 Each clause is ensured to carry out all three functions simultaneously. Thus, the analysis of clauses that only concern one or two of the three functions, leaving out two or one other functions, is not complete. What if you analyze a text that contains many clauses? The same analysis must also be carried out on each clause in the text. Then, the meaning of the text as a whole is accumulated from the results of the analysis of each of these clauses individually.

 At the discourse level, as stated by Halliday and Hasan (1985), Halliday (1994), and Thomson (2004), a text (both spoken and written). Language expression contains three meta-functions, namely: ideational (which consists of experiential and logical), interpersonal, and textual. The three meta-functions produce meanings called meta-functional meanings, including ideational meanings (with sub-experiential and logical meanings), interpersonal and textual meanings.

Under the ideational meta-function, the experiential meta-function expresses experiential meaning from the reality of experience. In contrast, the logical meta-function realizes logical meaning (logico-semantic) due to the logical reality that connects these experiences. The interpersonal meta-function of a text realizes interpersonal meaning due to the social reality built from the relationships between the participants in it. Interpersonal meaning consists of interactional meaning (meaning that expresses personal interaction) and transactional meaning (that expresses information and goods/services). 

Finally, the textual meta-function realizes textual meaning as a result of combining the realization of the two meta-functions: ideational and interpersonal, into symbols, which in language are called textual expressions.

 The three meta-functions work simultaneously to realize the task carried out by discourse in the context of use or the situation. What is realized is none other than the three meta-functional meanings.

 

LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL CONTEXT

 In the link between language and social context, technically, language is discussed in two levels of the semiotic system. There is a level of the semiotic system (language), which is also a form of realization of another semiotic system that is more abstract (social context).

  The relationship between one system and another system in systemic functional linguistics is a relationship that is mutualism or reciprocity. Such a relationship illustrates that, on the one hand, language is revealed as a text, namely the language in its use, or the language whose task is to create meaning. On the other hand, language is considered as a social institution, namely language as a form of social practice, or language in its capacity as a means to actualize knowledge.

 The idea of ​​“language as a social institution” is derived from Whitney, driven by Ferdinand de Saussure (1988a:4). However, unlike Whitney, for Saussure, language is not the same as other social institutions, such as educational, political, and legal institutions. For Whitney, the function of these institutions – including the function of language, is more coincidental. In contrast, for Saussure, although the function of other institutions is coincident, the function of language is natural. As a social institution, language is a sign system that is naturally used to express ideas;, among the existing sign systems, language is the essential sign system (Saussure, 1988b: 10-14). So important is the function of language so that this function continues to generation from generation to generation.

Social context is divided into cultural context and situational context. Cultural context is a system of values ​​and norms that represent beliefs in a particular culture. This value system includes everything that is believed to be right or wrong, good or bad, including ideology, which concerns social order that generally applies in culture. Meanwhile, norms are the realization of a value system in the form of rules that control social processes, what community members should and should not do in carrying out social processes. If it is expressed in the form of images, then discourse, language is carrying out its social function.

  The context of the situation is the immediate environment in which language is used. According to Halliday (1985; 1994; Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Martin, 1992), the context of the situation affects the register (variety or style of linguistic expression), which consists of three aspects: field (field), tenor (involving), and mode (mode), which work simultaneously to form a contextual configuration or configuration of meaning. This configuration will determine the form of linguistic expression and style of language or the overall intention of a text, which shows the registers used to realize the social processes in the text. Registers in the SFL view are variations of language based on the way the language is used.  The field refers to an event with its environment, namely what happened, when, where, and how. Involvement is the type of participant involved in the incident, which includes the social status and roles performed by the participant. 

Finally, mode consists of two sub-aspects, namely media and means or channels. This media relates to whether the text is delivered in spoken or written language style. Channel is a way used to express the event. Channels include whether the text is expressed in books, newspapers, audio, visual, or audio-visual.

 Understanding the context of this situation is often debated whether it is dynamic or synoptic (static). The dynamic model implies that the contextual configuration or configuration of meaning constantly changes as long as the discourse created is ongoing. Some systemic experts use this model to analyze oral speech, such as conversations, seminars, or debates. This is possible because in discourse like this, terrain, involvement, and mode can change throughout the discourse. Meanwhile, the synoptic or static model has a more established contextual configuration in discourse that is not currently taking place. Therefore, this model is often used in analyzing written discourses such as editorials, news, and so on, which have a relatively more established contextual configuration than oral discourse.

 

References

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 Fowler, R. (1986). Linguistic Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1985). Introduction to Functional Grammar. London:  Edward Arnold.

 Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd  Ed.  London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M.A.K., & Hasan, R. (1985). Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Victoria: Deakin University Press.

Halliday, M.A.K. & Martin, J.R. (1993). “The Model”, Writing Science:  Literacy and Discursive Power. London: The Falmer Press.

Martin, J.R. (1985). Factual Writing: Exploring and Challenging Reality.  Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press.

Martin,  J.  R.  (1992).  English  Text:  System  and  Structure.  Philadelphia/ Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

 Martin, J. R. (1993). “Global Orientation” (Handout), Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney.

 Matthiessen, C.M.I.M. (1992). Lexico-gramatical Cartography: Englsih System (Draft). Sydney: University of Sydney. [Matthiessen, C. (1995). Lexicogramatical Cartography: Englsih System. Tokyo: International Language Sciences Publishers].

 Richards, J., Platt, J. & Weber, H. (1985). Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics. Harlow: Longman.

 Saussure, F.D. (1988a). “The Object of Study”. In Lodge, D. (Eds.), Modern Criticism and Theory. London: Longman.

 Saussure, F.D. (1988b). “Nature of the Linguistic Sign”. In Lodge, D. (Eds.), Modern Criticism and Theory. London: Longman.

 Thompson, G. (2004). Introducing Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.