Finding complementarity in the approaches of Halliday and Fawcett

Among the seven distinctive features of SFL identified by Professor M.A.K. Halliday is what he refers to as ‘Patterns of analogies, complementarities’, or as he explains: ‘Thinking in terms of patterns of analogies, complementarities, compatibility with other views and theories (where others only see contractions.’ Noting the ‘different dialects of the “language” of Systemic Functional Linguistics’ (Fawcett 2008: 12, citing Halliday’s use of the term at the 1995 International Systemic Congress in Beijing), particularly the Sydney Grammar and Cardiff Grammar, Fawcett points out that they are modeling the same thing: ‘language and its use’. Fawcett describes both has alternative versions of the same theory, sharing historical roots and basic concepts (see Fawcett’s account of the ‘common ground between the Sydney Grammar and the Cardiff Grammar). While this common ground suggests obvious compatibility between these alternative versions of Systemic Functional Theory, our focus here is on finding complementarity where others might see only conflict and contradiction between Halliday’s theoretical framework and Fawcett’s Cardiff Grammar. More specifically, this paper looks at how Grammatical Metaphor (GM) phenomena is accounted for by Halliday and Fawcett in their respective approaches. Whereas Fawcett views GM phenomena as ‘only one sub-set of a sizeable cluster of challenges’, Halliday describes it as ‘the Knight’s Move’ in grammar whereby the adjacent possible is realized across strata.