Text and Context in Functional Linguistics

The shift towards a sociolinguistic approach to the analysis of language in the last few decades has necessitated new definitions for a number of concepts that linguists have taken for granted for a long time. This volume attempts to demystify the important notions of ‘text’ and ‘context’ by providing clear definitions and examples within the assumptions of Systemic Functional (SF) linguistics. After a discussion of the role and significance of context by three eminent SF linguists in section one, the influence of context on text is dealt with in section two ‘From Context to Language’. Section three ‘From Language to Context’ considers textual features and their relationship to contextual factors. All the contributors base their analyses on data collected from a variety of spoken and written registers of contemporary English.