Language Socialization: A Systemic Functional Perspective
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LANGUAGE SOCIALIZATION: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
INTRODUCTION
The point-of-departure for a systemic functional linguistic (SFL) account of language socialization must necessarily be its claim to be a theory of language as social semiotic (Halliday, 1978; Hasan, 1996), broadly the theory that language is ‘a resource for meaning’ in the complex socially constituted contexts within cultures. In Halliday’s words: A ‘sociosemiotic’ perspective implies an interpretation of the shifts, the irregularities, the disharmonies and the tensions that characterize human interaction and social processes. It attempts to explain the semiotic of the social structure, in its aspects of both persistence and change, including the semantics of social class, of the power system, of hierarchy and of social conflict. It attempts also to explain the linguistic processes whereby the members construct the social semiotic, whereby social reality is shaped, constrained and modified – processes which, far from tending towards an ideal construction, admit and even institutionalize myopia, prejudice and misunderstanding . . . (Halliday, 1978, p. 127). From this claim it follows that accounts of linguistic phenomena— meaning, lexicogrammar, ontogenesis, literacy and so on—all are viewed as a result of the ‘social’, in various senses of that term. Another way of representing this position is to say that it is a logical impossibility in the model for language to originate asocially, so language socialization is, in a sense, the process of language development (Williams and Lukin, 2004). However, this orientation also entails a complex set of claims about relations between social context, language development, and the nature of language itself. In developing an account of language socialization SFL, as a theory of language, does not attempt to describe social structure directly but engages in ‘metadialogue’ with sociological theory that accords language a significant role in its account of social transmission and reproduction (Hasan, 1999). To explore an SFL perspective together with aspects of its relations with sociological theory, I will focus on two specific topics: relations P. A. Duff and N. H. Hornberger (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd Edition, Volume 8: Language Socialization, 57–70. #2008 Springer Science+Business Media LLC.
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GEOFF WILLIAMS
between a child’s meaning-making prior to language and children’s ‘socialization’ into language use per se, and intra-cultural variation in meaning-making in everyday language use. The two questions have been chosen to illustrate the status of the concepts of language function and language system in SFL accounts of language socialization. ‘Function’ is crucial to the theory, but does it mean anything more than ‘use’ in this framework? Similarly, does ‘system’ mean anything more than just a general sense of a language? The selection has also been made to address a question raised by scholars interested in both acquisition and socialization, a question about ways in which it mi
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