Fawcett's Eight Metafunctions

Matthiessen (1995: 85-6):

Some systemic linguists have taken positions on the metafunctions different from Halliday's, which is followed here. In particular, Fawcett (1980) sets up eight metafunctions rather than three. In terms of the present treatment, a number of the metafunctions he differentiates (e.g., negativity, attitude) correspond to functional regions rather than metafunctions and the higher number of metafunctions is essentially a result of interpersonal enacting a more delicate differentiation. As will be noted below, functional regions within the same metafunction (in the framework used here) interact in metafunctionally principled ways and this is an important reason for recognising metafunctional unity.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, the point here is that it will be demonstrated that there are theoretical reasons for thinking that Fawcett (1980) misunderstands regions within a metafunction for distinct metafunctions.

See also The Cardiff Grammar.