Abstract
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Exploring Choice is one of two volumes edited by Fontaine, Bartlett and O’Grady based on the 21st European Functional Linguistics Conference and Workshops hosted at Cardiff in 2009. The two books share the same theme, choice, but differ in orientation. This volume focuses on theoretical development of choice by a thorough and varied examination of its concept, its contribution to linking language and cognition, and language and society, its constraints in language use and ways to study it in text, while the other volume (O’Grady et al., 2013; see p. 489), emphasizes the role choice plays in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as appliable linguistics across various contexts, and presents analytical perspectives of choice across wide-ranging contexts.
The notion of ‘choice’ has long been a focus of attention for systemic functional linguists, and the notion of language as ‘choice’, a set of alternatives for semantic, cognitive, neurolinguistic, social, political, cultural and contextual expression, is seen by systemicists as an important site for the study of linguistic problems in contemporary society. The articles in this volume relate organically and centrally to these fresh perspectives, examining in particular the potential for formal and informal, spoken and written language use and the constraints on such genres and registers which the term ‘choice’ implies.
In the ‘Introduction’, Fontaine tells readers that the purpose of this volume is to consider the very nature of choice and the role choice plays in systemic functional theory. She explains clearly the background and contributions to this volume, why ‘choice’ is the theme, and how the volume is organized into five parts and 22 chapters.
The six chapters in Part I focus on varied individual construals of the concept of choice, for example, Halliday’s in-depth discussion of the notion of meaning as choice using systemic functional theory as the framework, Bache’s suggestion of treating speaker’s choices in text production as communicatively motivated and Fawcett’s proposal of an integrative model of language in which microplanners and the major areas of meaning are the two main senses of choice.
The three chapters in Part II show how choice contributes to relating language to cognition. Lamb examines the nature of choice as displayed in the systemic functional network seen from the perspective of rational networks. Asp offers some observations about choice concerning agency and consciousness in ‘developing neurocognitively tenable process models for language and discourse’ (p. 162). Gil appeals for more research to see how choice, as it is understood in SFL terms, could be represented as operationally plausible.
The three chapters in Part III serve to examine how choice is constrained by language use from the perspectives of syntactic structure, discourse strategy and text evolution, while the six chapters in Part IV are designed to investigate various ways through which choice contributes to linking language and social context, such as by looking at institutional texts, formal and informal use of language, diachronic changes and generic features. For example, Bartlett elaborates on context, environment and the potential for institutional change, and Bowcher comments on developing our understanding of the relationship between linguistic and material action.
The four chapters in Part V are devoted to methodological approaches to the study of choice in text from different angles, for example, Teich’s practical methodology from a specifically qualitative perspective in register analysis, and Miller and Johnson’s statistically ‘salient’ analysis of evaluation and stance in congressional debate.
In my opinion, this volume has several features that deserve the attention of readers. First, although choice is a core theoretic concept in the development of systemic functional theory, its nature has rarely been considered, whereas this book looks on choice as a primary concept to be analyzed and debated in its own right and offers an open debate and a critical examination of its place in systemic functional theory.
Second, although all the contributors are well-established in the field of SFL, they take a broad and interdisciplinary view on choice which has been influenced by other related theories in semantics, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociology, biology, computational linguistics and neurolinguistics.
Third, senses of choice as process and as product are interdependent. Thus, choice is often seen as both dynamic and static, depending on how it functions at all levels of language. For example, Fontaine sees choice as both the available semantic options and the process of selecting options, while in Fawcett’s view, the ambiguity of choice between process and product is not the main problem with the term: what matters is the meaning of choice in its process sense, and also the meaning of choosing. He argues that it is alright to talk of features in systems as choices in a product sense, but problematic to do so in a process sense because it implies ‘decision’ and hence also ‘planning’.
Fourth, the volume presents readers with divergent research approaches, for example, computational and psycholinguistic approaches to test a model of linguistic choice in writing process (O’Donnell), and a diachronic description of tense selection in news reporting to explore how the context of culture motivates language choices (Urbach). As well, this volume covers studies in various contexts, for example, interlanguage (Praxedes Filho) and political speeches (Thompson). In so doing, it will benefit readers with different academic backgrounds.
There are multiple reasons why the book can be recommended to a range of readers. Not only can it serve as a course and reference book for students and researchers working in all areas of functional linguistics, discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition, neurolinguistics and sociolinguistics because of its use of strong theoretical perspectives, but it also sets the scene for further studies on the theoretical concept of choice.