Famous Teachers Forum: The Multi-functional Clause in Systemic Functional Linguistics

From 12:30 to 14:00 on September 19, 2019, Prof. Lisa Fontaine, a well-known scholar from the Language Exchange Center of Cardiff University, UK, gave a lecture on “The Multi-functional Clause in Systemic Functional Linguistics” in the SFS. Present at the lecture were many teachers, postgraduates and doctoral students of English linguistics.

In the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Lisa Fontaine made a humorous introduction, and analyzed in detail the important principles and concepts of systemic functional linguistics, including meaning potential, discourse, and meta language.

Later, Prof. Lisa Fontaine introduced clause structure from the perspective of system functional linguistics. Based on the early works of Halliday, the founder of system functional linguistics, she analyzed how the three meta-functions of language are implemented in this theory, and how functions are embodied in clauses. She focused on the realization of empirical, interpersonal, and textual functions in clauses, and illustrated them with various charts, which aroused strong interests among teachers and students here.

Prof. Lisa Fontaine fully interacted with the teachers and students, and raised their thinking on systemic functional grammar. The students actively participated in the discussions, which deepened their understanding of why people should view language problems in a functional way. All the teachers and students in the lecture gained a lot in this process.