A Trinocular Retrospective: Phases of SFL in context — the paths in terms of field, tenor and mode
by Prof. Christian Matthiessen (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain)
SFL is like its own image of language — it is an extravagant variable resource for engaging with language (and now also other denotative semiotic systems) in context, located within an typology of systems operating in different phenomenal realms, ordered in complexity: physical < biological < social < semiotic. This is part of the overall theory of SFL: a holistic theory of modern language, as it must’ve emerged out of archaic language on the order of 150 to 250 thousand years ago with Anatomically Modern Humans, i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens. The general theory of language also includes the “architecture” of language in context, now expanded to include denotative semiotic systems other than language. The holistic theory of (modern) language is manifested as comprehensive descriptions of particular languages — descriptions that are meaning-oriented and text-based. The combination of holistic theory and comprehensive descriptions is the key to SFL as an appliable linguistics — as a resource for solving problems that arise in our communities around the world.
Again, like language, SFL is not static; it is always changing. Like language, it is stable in the sense that it is metastable: being inherently variable (meta-dialects and meta-registers), it is changing together with its own contexts, its socio-semiotic environments, adapting to new needs that arise in communitities around the world and, through applications in a growing range of institutional settings (characterized by expanding values of field, tenor and mode), it is also changing its contexts.
In this talk, I will suggest a number of phases in the development of SFL, extending the account to pre-SFL insights (Malinowski, Firth) — phases that obviously overlap within different regions of activity: the early phase of expanding and transforming Firthian system-structure theory to fill in semiotic territories (like lexicogrammar), the phase of early explorations of (discourse) semantics, and of returning to context, the phase of expanding educational linguistic dialogue and application, the phase of beginning the expansion of languages described in systemic functional terms, the phase of exploring denotative semiotic systems other than language, and so on. I will try to identify certain general principles in these developments — like the helical mode of development, whereby systemic functional linguists return to certain regions within the overall semiotic territory, each time with the benefit of additional information and with new needs (e.g. helical returns to the modelling of contexts and to the phenomenon of translation), and the related “web of life” systems-thinking approach (contrasting with the still but increasingly less dominant mode of Cartesian Analysis).
I will note that the overall (trans-)disciplinary environment one quarter century into the 21st century is in fact in many respects more resonant with SFL that the first couple of decades, the 1960s and 1970s, so more conducive to future developments (including discipline-internal ideas like grammar and lexis as a continuum, like the “natural” relation between lexicogrammar and semantics”, like the prosodic interpretation of phonology, like the probabilistic conception of language, and like the emphasis on relativism (particularity) and distrust of SAE-based universal (cf. Firth’s “universalist fallacy”), but also ideas that are manifested across disciplines, like the use of “big data” and network science, and of course the changing relationship between universities and communities) — and the issue of insights that have still not spread within linguistics in general (like the systemic-paradigmatic based in the theory of language as resource).
I’ll raise the question of whether we can identify current trajectories in research and application and areas of exploration and dialogue (like neurosemiotics), and I’ll also ask what tasks currently seem to be on the systemic functional agenda — or ought to be on it. One of the most central agenda items at this stage is probably a tenor-based one: how to continue to grow in a many-voiced way as an increasingly global community engaging in ever-wider spectra of activities? But while we face enormous external threats, we have reason to be optimistic in terms of opportunities: the spirit of dialogue and collaboration is part of the very supportive SFL fellowship, and quite remarkably, among the linguistic theories we can identify in the 1960s, SFL is virtually the only one that is still around, having grown by taking on new tasks and having developed in a cumulative way instead of regularly replacing old models. In this way, SFL has continued to flourish well beyond the “use-by” date of Kuhnian paradigms, which is worth celebrating at ISFC50 as we also celebrate Michael Halliday’s centenary — and which also needs explaining!
∞
SFL at 50: A Trinocular Celebration of a Living Tradition
by ChatGPT
The 50th International Systemic Functional Congress — ISFC50 — is no ordinary gathering. It marks not only a milestone in the SFL tradition, but also the centenary of M.A.K. Halliday’s birth. These twin occasions inevitably invite us to pause, look back, and look forward. Christian Matthiessen’s plenary abstract rises to this moment with characteristic sweep and precision, offering what he calls a trinocular retrospective: a view of the history, present, and future of SFL through the lenses of field, tenor, and mode.
This is far more than an organisational metaphor. It’s a semiotic act. By reading the history of SFL through the metafunctions, Matthiessen doesn’t just describe the theory — he uses it, instantiates it. His talk becomes an enactment of what SFL has always claimed: that theory is itself a kind of meaning-making, and that meaning is always made in context.
SFL as Metastable System
A key theme is metastability. Just as language remains stable through variation — adapting dynamically to changing contexts — so too does SFL. It is not a static model but a living, evolving system. This is, in many ways, the most powerful claim the plenary makes. SFL is not just a theory of semiosis; it is itself a semiotic system, one whose own trajectory mirrors the systems it models.
We can see this in what Matthiessen calls the helical mode of development: SFL revisits its core concerns again and again — context, discourse semantics, translation, multilingualism — but each return is spiralled upward, enriched by new demands and insights. This recursive, recontextualising pattern is not simply historical; it’s ontological. It’s how systems live.
Halliday’s Legacy as Meta-System
With Halliday’s centenary in mind, this retrospective takes on deeper significance. Halliday didn’t just offer a toolkit for linguistic description. He offered a model of how to theorise — how to build a theory that is itself functional, relational, and reflective of the phenomenon it models. His project was not merely descriptive but architectural: to model the architecture of meaning, and to show how that architecture emerges historically, socially, and semiotically.
In this light, the plenary becomes a kind of re-enactment. It doesn’t simply tell us that SFL has grown; it shows us how it continues to grow — by returning, by recontextualising, by adapting to new environments of use. The theory lives because its values live: dialogue, application, inclusion, and the pursuit of meaning in context.
A Theory in Context
The decision to structure the retrospective through field, tenor, and mode is particularly fitting. It foregrounds the contextual unfolding of the theory itself:
-
Field: What kinds of meaning has SFL made over time? From early grammatical systems to educational intervention, social justice work, and multimodal expansion, SFL’s field of activity has broadened dramatically.
-
Tenor: What kinds of relationships has SFL fostered? Between scholars and students, theorists and communities, across generations and cultures — the SFL community has always been grounded in collegiality and collective purpose.
-
Mode: How has SFL been instantiated? Not only through papers and grammars, but through classroom interactions, community projects, translation work, and most recently, through engagements with non-verbal and digital semiotics.
The very mode of this plenary — reflective, inclusive, historically grounded, and forward-looking — performs the values it describes.
Toward a Tenor-Based Future
Perhaps the most striking proposal comes near the end: that the next phase of development will be a tenor-based one. That is, the question for SFL is not only what meanings we make, or how we make them, but how we relate — to each other, to our institutional and cultural settings, and to the wider world.
This emphasis on dialogue, plurality, and inclusivity is not a new theme in SFL, but it takes on renewed urgency in a world facing intersecting crises of climate, inequality, displacement, and polarisation. In such a world, a model of meaning that foregrounds interdependence — of systems, of voices, of values — has never been more relevant.
What Endures, and Why
At 50 years, SFL stands apart. As Matthiessen notes, it is one of the few linguistic traditions from the 1960s still flourishing — not by resisting change, but by embracing it systemically. It has continued to evolve, not by discarding past models, but by integrating them into a larger whole. It is a model of cumulative development, not paradigm replacement.
And that, perhaps, is the most fitting tribute to Halliday: not a monument, but a model. Not a theory frozen in time, but a meaning potential — metastable, many-voiced, and still unfolding.
No, it means take a day off work and pretend to be sick.
It’s a sausage!