Functions of Language - Volume 4, Issue 2, 1997

This paper1 is meant to be a contribution to the current debate on the scope and accountability of grammatical description by a critical examination of features of the systemic-functional model. As to scope, I consider to what extent this grammar can actually account for language use in text. I argue that the semantic functions which are specified in the separate components of systemic-functional grammar combine pragmatically under variable conditions of interpretation which will always elude grammatical analysis, and that although it is possible to analyse text as manifesting linguistic categories, the interpretation of text as the realization of these categories in discourse is a pragmatic matter beyond the scope of grammar. This means that you can make use of grammatical description, and therefore make it useful, but use and usefulness cannot be intrinsic design features of the description, and cannot be adduced as measures of its validity.

This paper addresses the modelling of lexis within the framework of systemic functional grammar (SFG). Following Halliday's original notion of lexis as 'most delicate grammar', it is argued within SFG that there is no sharp distinction between structure and lexis. Instead, both aspects of linguistic organisation are integrated into one single network of lexicogrammatical options, which constitutes the meaning potential of a language. Options in the lexicogrammar are realised at the same time by structural configurations and lexical items.Taking adjectives and their structures as its focus, the paper develops a lexicogrammatical description which takes into consideration the range of options available for the expression of 'qualities of things' and the constraints upon and consequences of lexicogrammatical choice in this area. What emerges in particular from such a description is the complex interrelationship and interdependency between lexical and structural choice.

Standard theories of politeness (Lakoff 1975, Leech 1983, Brown and Levinson 1987) face a number of problems. To mention but a few, it can be doubted that these theories have managed to establish truly universal concepts and classifications of (im)polite behavior; they exaggerate the relative importance of indirectness; they do not treat situational and societal constraints sufficiently; finally, they do not deal with rudeness in enough detail.Therefore, it does not seem to be possible to describe rudeness simply as a deviation from or violation of rules and maxims of cooperative/polite communication. Starting from suggestions made by Kasper (1990) and Culpeper (1996), I will try to refine standard definitions of politeness and rudeness. Moreover, examples of rude utterances (mostly taken from spoken and written English and German dialogues) will be used to establish a typology of communicative rudeness. Several subtypes of cooperative (e.g. ritual insults, reactive rudeness, sociable rudeness) and non-cooperative (e.g. strategic rudeness in public institutions) rudeness are distinguished.