Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a framework for analyzing language developed by Michael Halliday, viewing language as a system of meaning-making choices where speakers select from available options to express meanings. The approach emphasizes the relationship between language form and social context, analyzing how register (field, tenor, mode) shapes linguistic choices and how language constructs meaning through metafunctional systems (ideational, interpersonal, textual). SFL is widely applied to discourse analysis, language education, and computational linguistics.