Hasan’s Semantic Networks Revisited: a Cantonese Systemic Functional Approach

Abstract

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), Ruqaiya Hasan and her colleagues have placed much emphasis on the stratum of semantics. Such emphasis reflects her view that the study of meaning is indeed a central aspect of SFL, and theoretically shares the same status as the study of lexicogrammar. For Hasan, semantics and lexicogrammar are ‘two sides of the same coin’ (Hasan et al., 2007, p. 699). That is to say, without lexicogrammar, meaning could not be manifested in our human social practices; and by the same token, without meaning, lexicogrammar would have no reason for existence in human language (Hasan et al., 2007; Hasan, 2010). Systemic functional semantics, in Halliday’s (2009, p. 82) words, is considered to be a separate stratum in the model of language — the ‘linguistic inter-level to context’ (Matthiessen, 1993, p. 227) (see e.g. also Halliday, 2009; Hasan et al., 2007; Hasan, 2010). There are various points of departure concerning semantics in SFL literature: (1) stylistic analysis, particularly the study of literary text (e.g. Butt and Lukin, 2009), (2) computational linguistics, with a particular focus on text generation parsing (e.g. Mann, 1984; Mann and Matthiessen, 1985; Matthiessen, 1988; Halliday and Matthiessen, 1999), (3) sociological linguistics and semantic variation (e.g. Halliday, 1973; Turner, 1973; Hasan, 1983, 1996; Hasan and Cloran, 1990 [2009]) and (4) the collaborative and interactive exchange of dialogue (e.g. Halliday, 1984; Martin, 1992; Matthiessen, 1995; Eggins, 1990; Eggins and Slade, 2004).

This chapter is an elaboration of the conference presentation at the 40th International Systemic Functional Congress, held at Sun Yat-sen University, 15–19 July 2013. I am very grateful to Geoff Williams and Ruqaiya Hasan for their intellectual discussions on semantic networks, and Wendy Bowcher who revised and gave me valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this chapter.