SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS AND SOCIAL COGNITION: A

THEORETICAL APPROACH ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE,

SOCIETY, AND CULTURE

1. Introduction

This theoretical paper aims to integrate perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics
(SFL) and Social Cognition, understanding that the categories of the first added to the
principles of the latter can bring a different direction to language research – theoretical or
applied – impacting all areas of society by offering a basis on which we can clarify a range of
topics and elements associated to the relationship between language, society, and culture in
conjunction with a cognitive view.

We believe an approach differing from the prior dominant paradigm – represented, for
instance, by Noam Chomsky's biological basis – does not – primarily – mean to forgo the
relationship that can be established between an instrumentalizing perspective based on the
human communication, as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and social activities we
perform when knowingly incorporating/learning a linguistic repertoire, and, most
importantly, the situations attached to this repertoire.

We advocate here not an ending, but a (re)opening of a space for reflection to think about the
possibility of creating an interface between SFL and the premises of Social Cognition. In
other words, the basis of SFL, in our view, does not exclude the possibility of perceiving
Lexicon-Grammar as constituting and imbued of a Social Cognition that seeks to guarantee
the mutual understanding of its forms in a given society and culture, through its repertoire of
possibilities that can be selected and employed by its users, according to a certain context.

To demonstrate our attempt at integration, we will work with the categories proposed mainly
by Halliday (1994), and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014), guiding this form of
categorization towards the propositions of Social Cognition according to Augoustinus,
Walker and Donaghue (2006). Then finally, we will reflect on the linguistic, social, and
cultural relevance of this integration.

In order to organize our reflections, we divided the text into three more sections as follows:
(I) Main fundaments and categories in Systemic Functional Linguistics; (II) Main fundaments
and categories in Social Cognition; (III) Mind, language, and society: Seeking integration and
building a space for reflection. Lastly are the final considerations and references.

2. Main fundaments and categories in Systemic Functional Linguistics .

This section will be based mostly on Halliday (1985a, b: 1994) Halliday and Hasan (1976,
1993), Matthiessen and Halliday (2009), and Halliday and Matthiessem (1999, 2004, 2014).
We will also take into account Eggins (2004), Lock (1996), Thompson (1996), Martin,
Matthiessen and Painter (1997), Arús and Lavid (2001), Martin (1992, 1997, 2001, 2017),
Butt et al. (2004), and Fuzer and Cabral (2014) as references to comprehend, considern, and
review SFL in this section.

Being a general overview of the theory and also the main categories of M.A.K Halliday, the
author’s words will not be discriminated at all times throughout the body of the text; it is
implicit that those ideas originate from his thinking in different moments of the theory1 that
was thought and rethought by many Brazilian and international researchers.

Systemic Functional Linguistics was developed by linguist Michael Alexander Kirkwood

Halliday (1925–2018) to become “an analysis-synthesis of grammar based on the
paradigmatic notion of choice, built upon the work of Saussure, Malinowski and Firth,
Hjelmslev, the Prague School and American anthropologist linguists Boas, Sapir, Whorf;
with J. R. Firth as the main inspiration” (HALLIDAY, 1985b, p. 30). Regarding its
recognition as an important theory in language studies in general, Schleppegrell (2012, p. 21)
claims this is due to the fact that “SFL recognizes the powerful role language plays in our
lives and sees meaning-making as a process through which language shapes, and is shaped
by, the contexts in which it is used.” Fuzer and Cabral (2014) explain, then, that SFL is
systemic as it sees language as networks of linguistic systems interconnected to provide
resources to the construction of meanings and to do things in the world, and is functional as it
explains grammatical structures aiming for interconnection with meaning, i.e. relating to the
functions of language performed in and by texts.

This approach sees the language as functional by perceiving it as a means of constructing

meanings, being concerned with the impact that it may behave on the context. The perception

1
For considerations on the linear development of SFL, look, mainly, Matthiessen (2005)
of language use from a socio-semiotic perspective focuses on meaning as constituted by the
choices that produce social meanings. Thus, in another instance, it promotes the text as the
category of analysis and no longer the clause.

For SFL, language is, above all, a social and cultural product that presupposes attitudes,
values, experiences, behaviors, among others, as it derives, according to Halliday (1985a,
1994), and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014), from the need to satisfy the needs of those
who make use of the linguistic system. In other words, SFL is concerned with how the
language is structured for use so its point of view is based on the idea of interaction, of
communication between those who make use of the linguistic system for different
propositions, in different contexts and situations. As Martin (2017, p. 54) summarizes: ‘‘SFL
has evolved as a theory of language foregrounding paradigmatic relations as the basic
organizing principle of both theory and description.”

This shifted the focus to the functional aspect of language through what is called
Metafunctions : Ideational (subdivided into Experiential – linked to past content and ideas
–and Logic – to allow the analysis of the relationship between the transmitted ideas),
Interpersonal, and Textual. This Metafunctional perspective is based, respectively, on the
perception that language (1) is used to organize, understand, and express ways of perceiving
the world of our own consciousness, in the sense of our way of seeing/seeing what surrounds
us and do things (Ideational Metafunction); (2) to participate in communicative events with
other people, in reason to allow the expression and understanding coming from the other of
our feelings, attitudes, judgments, and status (Interpersonal Metafunction); and (3), finally, to
organize information in oral or written texts, in order to enable its understanding, in a
cohesive and also coherent way (Textual Metafunction).

This way of thinking requires that we rethink the status of the clause, as each Metafunction
focuses on a different view: Ideational, as representation; Interpersonal, as an exchange; and
Textual, as a message. This way of seeing the clause, in turn, has a direct impact on the way
of perceiving Lexicogrammar since it imposes seeing the linguistic forms also in a particular
way, i.e. within interactional, social, and cultural propositions, to the extent that relationships
are established in social practices.
That is why language and the social context needs to be seen as semiotic levels that
complement and integrate each other, i.e. it is, above all, a socio-semiotic perspective to
understand how we produce and interpret the semantic unit we call text. This means the basic
functions of the language are specifically related to the micro and macro contexts in which
the language itself is used, linking closely with the social context “making sense of our
experience, and acting out our social relationships” ( Halliday & Mathiessen, 2014, p. 30).

From this relationship emanate concepts and categories of analysis that seek to explain the
social context, dividing it into the situation context, which is linked to the concept of record
and is studied in terms of the variables Field, Tenor, and Mode; and cultural context , linked
to the concept of genres, which, combined, generate and allow human action/activity in a
given society and culture. In this relationship, the variables in the Register impact the
constitution of genres, as they motivate linguistic choices within the genre. The field refers to
what takes place, i.e. the topic and nature of social action; Tenor concerns the participants in
the interaction, those who take part in the communicational act; and Mode refers to the
expectations that each participant has, that is, what each one expects from language in certain
situation.

Thompson (1996, p. 36) sees Register as varying according to use and explains one only uses
configurations of recognizable linguistic resources in certain contexts. This leads him to
define genre as a summation of the Register plus a proposition that makes it possible to
recognize what the interlocutors are doing through the language and how they organize the
linguistic event to successfully complete the proposition.

It is in this context of greater use of language that the Lexicogrammar of the language is
allocated, because it provides the universe of possible choices, according to rules that are
systematically and functionally connected to the communicative needs of those who use the
system. Lexicogrammar is, therefore, a source for the production of meanings.

For SFL, these choices are made in terms of systems connecting to Metafunctions and, at the
same time, to the Register variables corresponding to them. The Ideational Metafunction is
linked to the Field and is carried out through the transitivity system. The Interpersonal
relationship concerns the variable Tenor and is performed through the system of Mood and
modality; and, finally, the Textual Metafunction regards the variable Mode, performing out
through the theme/rheme structure and the information.

The Ideational Metafunction is based on the fact that the clause can model the experience
and, hence, reality would be shaped/made through Processes2. Thus, the approach to the
experience must be made from the category of transitivity. Halliday (1985a, 1994) and
Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014) recognize three main types of Processes: (1) Material,
(2) Mental and (3) Relational; and three minor types: (a) Behavioral, (b) Verbal and (c)
Existential. These three latter are considered Processes placed in a border area with the main
ones, therefore they share characteristics from both sets. Assuming a certain ambivalence that
even makes it difficult to classify these procedural categories, arising from the characteristics
of two other Processes, Behavioral would be between Material and Mental, Verbal between
Mental and Relational, and Existential between Relational and Material.

All of these Processes would evoke a specific type of Participant. The material process would
evoke, as a Participant, an Actor and/or a Goal, a Beneficiary, a Scope/Range, a Recipient, a
Client, and, sometimes, an Attribute; the Mental, a Senser and a Phenomenon; the Relational,
a possessor and a possessed , a Token and a Value (identifier and identified) or a Carrier and
Attribute; the Behavioral, a Behaver; the Verbal, a Sayer and Verbiage – sometimes a
Receiver or a Target; and the Existential, an Exister (cf. Halliday, 1985a, 1994; Halliday &
Matthiessen, 2004, 2014). Circumstances could occur freely in all types of clauses, regardless
of the process.

For Halliday (1985a, b, 1994) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, 2014), within the
Interpersonal Metafunction, during the analysis of the Mode, the researcher would stick to
two main categories: the Subject, whom the speaker wants to become responsible for the
value of proposition, and the Finite that expresses the Deicticity of the process in relation to
the speaker and now (past, present and future), and the judgment of the Speaker (Modality:
Probability, Usuality, Obligation, and Inclination: high, medium or low). What remains after
analysis of the Subject and the Finite is called Residue. In terms of Polarity, the Modality
should be analyzed as a Modulation which is related to the area of meaning between yes and
no, including yes and no.

2
Analysis category in the LSF regarding the study of words called verbs in Traditional Grammar.
 The main category of analysis of the Textual Metafunction is the Theme/Rheme sequence.
The Theme is the starting point of the sentence and extends to the first element that has a
function in transitivity and the theme is, roughly speaking, the information that remains after
the theme has been removed. From the point of view of an information system, one can work
towards two other remaining concepts from the Prague School: Given and New, analyzed
from the tonal group emitted by the speaker, with the new component coming at the end and
or not to come with any data component. Another category of this Metafunction concerns
textual cohesion, whether grammatical or lexical (cf. Halliday & Hasan, 1976, 1993;
Halliday, 1985a, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, 2014).

Still regarding the Textual Metafunction, complex clauses are also addressed using
two systems: Tactical, and Logical-Semantic systems.. Understood as two organizational
axes, the first is constructed by two types of interdependence: paratactic and hypotactic[U1] .
The relationship is established between elements of the same status (paratactic) or unequal
statutes (hypotactic), as one element changes the other. In the second case, a
Logical-Semantic system, the relations established between the elements of a complex are
through expansion or projection. Through expansion, one clause can expand the other and by
projection, one clause projects itself over the other, functioning as a representation brought by
the transitivity of an element of the clause to which it is linked, within a clause complex.

In the next section, we will try to present the assumptions and the main categories used by the
Social Cognition area, in order to later try to associate them with those of SFL.
3. Main fundaments and categories in Social Cognition

In this section, we intend to work with an integrated position in the introduction of the
general fundamentals and categories of what has been called Social Cognition. To this end,
we are adopting the position of Augoustinus, Walker, and Donaghue (2006).

As the authors explain, Social Cognition is a branch of Social Psychology and has,
terminologically, in recent times, supplanted this nomenclature in use. The great problem
pointed out at the beginning is that Social Psychology is not always well seen by sweeping
principles originating from disciplines considered unreliable: Psychology and Sociology
(Augoustinus, Walker & Donaghue, 2006, p. 3).

We believe that even from the point of view considered “individual”, cognition itself can and
should be thought of as a dialectical space of apprehension of culture, this, in turn, seen as a
factor of development, since the language is part of it as a sign and as an instrument for
interaction, although it is not reduced to a simple instrument. It is through it that culture in
general and experiences are exchanged. This already displaces the way of how to perceive the
culture, because it will only be learned in a dialectical way, although it is (re)articulated by
the individual at all times due to the social context in which it needs to make a common
thought and interact with others.

For Gordon Allport – quoted by Augoustinus, Walker, and Donaghue (2006, p. 04) – a Social
Psychology would be the attempt to understand how the thought, feeling, and behavior of
individuals are influenced by the effective, imagined, or implied presence of others. i.e. it is
already born in a context of social interaction without concern for the individual constitution
from the same perspective of ego-centered theories, but with concern for the forms of
relationship between individuals. The dominant perspective in American Social Psychology
has been called Social Cognition, emphasizing that, with this name, the social is its object of
study. As we can see, Social Cognition is a different current from others with a more
individualistic orientation, since Social Cognition originates and is based on social life,
interaction, and communication (Augoustinus, Walker & Donaghue, 2006, p. 07).

The main argument of Augoustinus, Walker and Donaghue (2006, p. 08) in favor of Social
Cognition rests on the fact that reconciling and integrating individual and society can lead to
a greater and more reflective dynamic understanding of human experience, the reason why
they seek to demonstrate contributions from three major approaches that influenced the
constitution of this field: the Theory of Social Identity, the Theory of Social Representations
and Discursive Psychology. Such approaches are relevant because they centralize the social
element in some way that it is possible to rescue the socio-interactive objectives constructing
social groups that share certain representations of the world that unite them.

This is different, for instance, from other orientations within the approaches of cognition with
different ways of treating this object, which may have as a principle of analysis concepts such
as those of conscious and unconscious, issues that do not seem to come to the case if we try
to establish a contact between Social Cognition and SFL.

Cleeremans (2001) seeks to show that characterizing conscious processes is one of the most
important goals in cognitive psychology, but raises the problem of the difficulty of exploring
the nature of consciousness, whether in the functional approach of the brain in neuronal
terms, whether behavioral, or through computational resources, when cognition is considered
linked to the dichotomous concepts of conscious versus unconscious. Therefore, the author
reviews experimental works in order to question the extent to which cognition can occur
unconsciously. The author concludes that the study of the differences between conscious and
unconscious processes is a specialty of the Cognitive Neurosciences and that, from this point
of view, what is called the unconscious process may be better characterized as the indirect
effects of the conscious process itself.

Kayes (2002), with an educational point of view, discusses forms of analysis and insight into
the role of experience in learning management. For this, he revises the concept of experience
to consider more clearly the relationship between the personal social elements (tacit or
explicit) of knowledge itself. According to the author, starting from a theoretical
reconceptualization considering several previous theories about the subject, the experience
must be defined within the context of language and social action. According to a large
proportion of the literature in learning management, learning is involved in the processes of
action, reflection, and experience. So learning involves an interactive game between two
interdependent dimensions of knowledge: acquisition and transformation, which require an
individual to dialectically solve this game of learning in the form of competition, that is, in a
tension involved in the acquisition of knowledge itself: apprehension (concrete experience)
versus understanding (abstract conceptualization). Soon, new experiences will be added to
those through which the individual has already gone, especially in environments where the
competition will have an impact on the professional construction of the individual, as is
specified and verified in the work of this author.

Nosek (2005), on the other hand, aims his research to analyze the evaluation process that
should be done by the individual in several situations. The author’s questioning goes through
a discussion about the contradictions that occur in evaluations when they have different
modes of evaluation – automatic or controlled – about what they call social objects.
According to the author, analyzes at different levels multilevel (Multilevel) – indicate that (1)
implicit preferences (automatic) and explicit (controlled) are related; (2) that this relationship
varies according to the evaluated objects and (3) that at least four variables moderate the
relationship – self-presentation, evaluative strength, dimensional and distinction
(distinctiveness).

What we generally perceive in the literature of the area – keeping in mind there does not
seem to be a consensus due to the different orientations – is that cognition is usually thought
of from certain processes involving specific cognitive factors such as attention, perception,
memory, reasoning, judgment, imagination, thought, and language.

Greco (2002) defines perception as an input into the consciousness of a sensory impression.
And in this sense, perception itself can also be understood from the interactional point of
view, since it involves what is around, because what gives input does not originate, a priori,
in the individual, but in the way it absorbs an experience and will return in all situations
where, even partially, something recognizable happens once again.

Therefore, according to Magill (1984), we must understand perception not as a condition, but
as a capacity for knowledge and interpretation of the stimulation that enter the information
processing system. This is what makes us use the mechanisms of attention to keep these
stimuli in order to provide us recognizable forms of the situations experienced and we can
compare them at other times. This must be kept in memory, where we will access the
acquired knowledge. When we process new information, we will then be able to be
reasonable, think, imagine if this or that knowledge/experience matches a certain situation,
society and culture, enabling us to make decisions, make choices and act according to what
we consider most appropriate. We believe that is marked in lexical-grammatical choices, in
accordance with the provisions of the Systemic-Functional Linguistics.

As Godinho (et al., 1999) warns us, we should not understand memory only as a place where
we keep something, but as a faculty in the human being of organization and separation of
information and stimuli that we receive. Thus, we can always see it from an interactional and
(re) articulatory point of view of knowledge and lived experiences.

The idea of a social cognition has been used to try to understand how people think of
themselves as members of a group and about the world/social/cultural universe itself.
Therefore, it seeks to describe the different ways of selection, interpretation and reminder for
providing and using social information to make judgments, choices and make decisions.

Understanding in this way, it is clear that not all studies of cognition always search to
comprehension of only the internal/neuronal mechanisms of knowledge acquisition to adapt
to the environment, but also the conversion mechanisms of what is captured for our “way of
being internal” that must be externalized so as to convey our experiences, which is why it has
a direct impact on the situational context in the form of constituting a repertoire of situations
to be understood, selected, changed, (re)articulated and/or (re)produced.

Constitutive social cognition would also directly impact the language choices we make when
interacting, as we select in the lexicon-grammar the one that best transfers our experiences to
the other. When we capture something and realize the best way to externalize it, we move our
experiential knowledge, which provides us with informative material about the environment
in which we are/living in and, through social cognition, we search for records to make
communication viable. From there, we went to the social context and selected the linguistic
material for the externalization of our experience.

Just as we acquire a repertoire of linguistic structures of potential significance, from which,

through choices, we give functionality to the linguistic system, we also need to acquire a
repertoire of situations that have to do with the attitudes we should/can take before them.

In other words, there are two types of acquisition: a linguistic one, according to SFL, through
which, in the production of meaning, in the articulation of the lexicon-grammar, we transfer
experiences, interact and organize our texts (oral or written, in the form of textual-discursive
genres 3) and another one of the different situations that we would keep according to
sociocultural standards, which would appears in other moments and environments to be
recognized, (re)articulated and/or (re)produced and/or modified contextually. There is a
repertoire represented in the lexicon-grammar and another represented in the form of what we
call here social cognition. This means that the interaction/communication would be linked to
a “systemic-functional cognitivism”.

This is relevant because organizing the Lexicogrammar for use leads to the process also
related to the experience of the other who must seek to understand what we say/write, but
who is also gifted with his/her own experiences. In this sense, it seems reasonable to propose
at least a reflection in this sense, as there is something beyond the social context – of situation
and – since experience is experienced and needs to be kept in order to meet future needs. This
association of information results in the dynamics of our social relationships and the
formation of impressions about other people and the larger context in which we operate.

As Augoustinus, Walker and Donaghue (2006) explain, several theories have contributed to
show, in different ways, the categories used by Cognition Sciences, but no longer focused on
the idea of an individual mind, but rather to focus on the nature of cognition. It is in this sense
that the main categories of analysis of Social Psychology began to migrate. If, at first, they
were understood as indisputable and perceived directly by means of physical and
intra-individual characteristics, at a second moment, they are displaced to be seen as
interchangeable and negotiated socially and culturally. The Theory of Social Identities, Social
Representations and Discursive Psychology promote a change in the way of understanding
such categories, showing their pragmatic, flexible, functionally variable, contextualized,
performative nature, i.e. shown as social practice, more than as cognitive processes
themselves.

Therefore, the categories are legitimized insofar as they are articulated in society, but they
start from worldviews present in a social cognition. If there are stereotyped categories such as
black, obese, disabled or disabled, among others, it is because, in some way, they are in
dialogue with a superordinate category, as shown by the theory of Social Cognition.
3
According to XXXXXXX, knowing the possible differences between the terms textual genre and
discursive genre, we opted for the term textual-discursive genre, meaning that two moments of text
constitution are being considered: “(1) its material skeleton, that is, its architecture linguistic-semiotic
(multisystemic and multisemiotic materiality), and (2) the moment when, through discourse, it
becomes a mechanism of social action ”.
According to Augoustinus, Walker and Donaghue (2006), the concepts of a schema, category
and stereotype are central to Social Cognition and are used to understand how people make
sense in the social world in a systematic and organized way. Seen as cognitive structures
initially in experimental research the schemes/prototypes, social role schemes (role schemes),
self-schemes (self-schemes) and event schemes (scripts), have recently been researched not
with models of social perception, but through more pragmatic approaches to show the
oriented and motivated nature of thought itself.

That way, by the approach of social representations, these concepts are thought of as a set of
systems of meanings modeled culturally, historically and politically, and by Discursive
Psychology, as topics of conversation, that is, of social practice, but externalized through
language from the choices made by the interacting individuals.

Another important concept is the attitude, which in the traditional approach to social
cognition is a stable cognitive structure that assesses an object, person or issue; however, it
takes different connotations given (1) by the functional approach – marks of social identity,
including a group as a whole and influencing behaviors – (2) by the Social Representation
Theory – reinstated by characteristics coming from interaction and dialogue – and ( 3)
Discursive Psychology – understood as evaluative practices with an impact on interaction.

This reanalysis is also done regarding the social motivation of the attributions, previously
seen as something implicit, built by the individual in daily life. For the Social Identities
Theory, there are sets of attributions that people make based on identification groups and
intergroup relationships, such as class, ethnicity, social gender, religion, among others. For
the Social Representation Theory, the attributions are not perceptual or individual cognitive
works of the minds, but systems of cultural meanings modeled collectively. As for Cognitive
Psychology, they originate in discursive practices, emphasizing the needs to be studied in
social interaction. This is the reason why Social Cognition, as it is stated today, studies, for
example, prejudice not as an authoritarian personality, but because of a social orientation that
wants to be dominant in relation to others.

As Augoustinus, Walker and Donaghue (2006, p. 384) conclude, research on cognition is

based on different levels, namely, intraindividual, interindividual, intergroup and collective.
Although it is clear that intra-individually [U2] it is not possible to approach Social Cognition
and SFL at other levels, with an orientation towards the meaning and function of language in
the construction of social relations, it seems possible, as we will try to make more clear in the
next section, through reflection on the assumptions of one and the other theory already
exposed previously.

4. Mind, language, and society: seeking integration and building a space for reflection.

As we have already reflected on, for our attempt at integration, we start from studies of the
social nuance of SFL, as evidenced in Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter (1997) and Gouveia
(2006).

Summarizing this thought, Gouveia (2006), in a discussion in the field of Linguistics about
theory, politics, and the politics of theory, shows that Halliday in Syntax and the consumer
(1964) sought a dialogue with Noam Chomsky (see, for instance, Chomsky, 1953, 1956,
1968), proposing a linguistics that was concerned with “a linguistics of consumable
knowledge”, that is, a linguistics that was instrumental, as opposed to the one related to the
ways our genes restricted our grammars and their combinatorial rules. Therefore, the author
makes use of a relevant and extensive discussion and a quotation from Martin, Matthiessen,
and Painter (1997).

As cited and later analyzed by the author, for Martin, Matthiessen and Painter (1997, p. 1),
“functional grammar sees grammar as shaped by, and as playing a significant role in shaping,
the way we get on with our lives. Its orientation is social, in other words, rather than
biological.”

However, if we work in the attitudinal sense facing the choices made among the possibilities
offered by the system, the guarantee of success among interlocutors could/should be
connected to a social cognition in the following sense: a choice in the linguistic system made
by the speaker will depend on his/her probable aims – which is still a mental aspect, but more
related to the non-arbitrariness of the use of the forms and the effects of meaning produced –
in turn related to the performative aspect of its organization in the sense that it needs, at the
very least, to anticipate the likely interpretation that its interlocutor may make of its choices
in propositional terms.
Dik (1989, p. 1), in a functionalist perception, for instance, states that the language system
and the use of language are interconnected, but they are distinct, because the process of
interaction between people are extremely complex and puts into question any simplistic and
definite response about what is involved in verbal interaction or about a probable/possible
greater relevance of any constituent elements of that process. A description of the language
that participants can only be perceived and understood within the interaction situation, which,
in turn, is determined socio-culturally.

This means a mobilization of elements from different spheres, which, in verbal interaction,
shows that between a probable intention of the addressee speaker and the recipient listener’s
interpretation, there is both a linguistic expression that must be understood as mediation, as a
grammar of the language seen as something emerging from this situation, as pointed out by
Hopper (1988, 2012).

Dik (1989, p. 9) explains that linguistic expression is a function of three interconnected

elements: (1) the speaker’s intention, (2) pragmatic information and (3) the speaker’s
anticipation of the listener’s interpretation. And this interpretation, in turn, would already be a
function (1) of the linguistic expression, (2) of pragmatic information and (3) of the
conjecture about the intentions of the speaker, operations to be made by the listener in the
interaction.

For this reason, we understand the relevance of a social cognition that can be rescued, on the
other hand, in the SFL, in the contexts of situation and culture, because these operations must
also be done by the interlocutor. That is, it starts from the principle that it dominates the
linguistic system – as a system of choices – and therefore will be able to understand the
proposition made, because it knows the lexicon-grammar of the language, in its performative
aspect. What one tries to deduce from this is that there are expectations for the choice and for
the specific use of a form of expression. But, in addition, there must be a whole recognizable
social and cultural conjuncture – social cognition – that can, from the operations of
search/anticipation of the probable “intentions” or the probable objectives and
communicative purposes of the speaker, try to “guarantee” the mutual understanding of the
proposition.
All this in the sense that there are these expectations, based on a collective, on collective
knowledge. Unlike an ecological perspective, such as that of Schutz (1979), i.e. centered on
the “I”, nor exactly in the relationship of an intentionality of that “I” as Searle (2000)
observes, there is only one social reality because of the shared knowledge that builds the
figure of the “we”, of the “collective us”, of a society and of an organized culture, in
accordance with shared, common knowledge and knowledge, which both construct social
reality in a perspective of Berger and Luckmann (1973) and should be part of the thought, of
the imaginary and of a sociocultural memory, in other words, of a social cognition. That is,
more than a polarized perception between the self and the social, there is a dialectic
constructing what we call social reality in which every element that is part of it is related to
the another closely in the construction of the meanings of the linguistic forms and that of the
greater sense which was built situational and culturally in the text, understood lato sensu.

It is in this way that we believe that it is not only a question of a social context divided into a
context of culture and situation, but also of a social cognition, responsible for the social
repertoire, cultural and situational exchanges that enable inter-cultural exchanges and seek to
ensure the effectiveness of such exchanges, evaluating the chance of a minimum supply of
expectations generated through possible/probable intentions of the speakers and the
knowledge of the listener who should be able to understand them in the process of decoding
the text. This text is produced from the lexical-grammatical choices (or of another nature)
made by the one who uses the possibilities that the linguistic system (or semiotic) provides,
for the production of meaning. It should therefore be noted that what we have are sense
effects coming from these choices and social cognition that makes something recognizable
and potentially significant, so the idea of “intention” or “intentionality” can only be
presumed.

Both Berger and Luckmann (1973) and Halliday (1978) use the building’s metaphor to talk
about the representative capacity of language. The former seek to show language as a
building of symbolic representation and the latter as a building of meanings and therefore a
semiotic construct. And it is important to note that Berger and Luckmann (1973) indicate
reality from the interactional perspective, because they start from the relationship established
with the other, which is why they affirm that it – the reality – is apprehended and objectified
previously.
Thus, based on the Metafunctions proposed by the Systemic Functional model,
Lexicogrammar would move this knowledge according to the communicative purposes of the
individual who makes use of the system. The representative potential of the language in use
would then be respected, both in the referential and in the metaphorical use pointed out by
Halliday (1978).

Better saying, the success of the interaction depends on these operations and we advocate that
it is necessary not only a social context – divided into a situational and cultural context – but
also a social cognition in ensuring that the lexicon-grammar is taken as a gateway to and from
dialectical transfer of this shared knowledge that is essential for the constitution of a reality, a
society and a culture.

What we are calling Social Cognition would be a dialectical assumption for the dynamics
present in the semantics of the discourse, since investing something lexicogrammically
implies the production of meaning, but of recognizable sociocultural and cognitive meaning
in a certain society and culture, as we try to adapt when inserting the social cognition in the
universe of discourse semantics:

Halliday and Mathiessen (1999, p. X) have already proposed a debate within Cognitive
Science, when they are thinking and affirming that cognition is not thought, but meaning,
since the mental “map” is a semiotic map, considering cognition as a way of talking about
language. Therefore, the lexicon-grammar would be a form of construction and modeling of
social cognition and the knowledge pertinent to it. Although from this work's point of view in
of the authors, the grammar creates a clear line between cognition and desire (desideration)
on the one hand and between perception and emotion on the other (cf. Halliday; Mathiessen,
1999, p. 139), it still seems to us relevant, as the authors themselves indicate, that a dialogue
be made with theories of cognition that can be in tune with LSF. Here, we propose dialogue
in a way, but it is open to new reflections and contributions that encourage it.

Halliday and Matthiessen (2014, p. 27) claim that “The system of a language is ‘instantiated’
in the form of text”, the instantiation itself being tied to the possible choices offered by the
language system. And in this sense, it is relevant to bring the contributions of Vian Júnior
(2009) when he assures instantiation as a dialectical process, insofar as, being the
manifestation of the linguistic system in the text, it has the prerogative of constructing and
reconstructing the meaning potentials of a given culture.

According to Gouveia (2009) the text is itself an instantiation of the system and makes it
possible to visualize its functioning in a network by examining what has been instantiated.
For Halliday (2004), as an artifact, it needs to be seen as a product of human interaction that
leads to an investigative activity that moves to try to know how it means what it means and
why, something that Gouveia (2009 p. 19) makes a point to highlight.
What we have presented in the previous section is one way to expand the discussion around
our interpretation of Halliday's (1978) proposal to understand the language as a code, imbued
with potentialities of both behavior and meaning. This, in our view, constitutes a point to
think about the means of expression as also connected to the human organism concerning
what it can do, in interaction with others, as well as its creative and transformative capability
of language based on what structures can mean. Those structures, according to
Metafunctions, would be permeated by the attributive and attitudinal potential required by
situations and contexts, and, therefore, turns language into a form of social action. This could
connect the categories of Social Cognition, explained in the previous section, to those
previously proposed by SFL, without, however, opposing a perspective based on the meaning
constructed within the interaction. In other words, we would continue to perceive the use of
language from a socio-semiotic perspective, defining meaning as constituted by the choices
that produce meanings, adding that there would be not only a repertoire of
Lexicogrammatical choices, but also a repertoire of situations and attitudes demanded by the
social context4 and the effects of meaning produced, with no diminishment of one theory by
the other or asymmetric relations of power between them, but a productive dialogue that
fosters research and debates between perspectives.
To conclude and outline our reflections, we propose, in summary, the following model:

This model, which is just an adjustment of what has already become traditional and canonical
in SFL, is intended to demonstrate that Social Cognition would cross all levels examined by
SFL, bringing possibilities of fulfilling expectations in communication, in the process of
social interaction, such as understanding of the gender (cultural context), whose different
approaches always point to ritualized situations and their nature of social action and
recognizable configuration, register and its variables (situational context), Metafunctions,
with direct impact on the expected attitudes based on the understanding of the
lexicon-grammar in terms of their potential for meaning.

4
We chose not to extend this discussion due to the scope of this work, but here we can also bring up
the matter of genres, which, in turn, inherently bring up their performative aspect, their recognizable
character as an artifact so sociocultural interaction can take place.
5. Final Considerations

What we have presented in the previous section is one way to expand the discussion around
our interpretation of Halliday's (1978) proposal to understand the language as a code, imbued
with potentialities of both behavior and meaning.

Just as this interface can bring another form of dialogue to theoretical and applied language
researchers, we believe that the broader social and educational environments can make use of
it to transform the school environment into a research laboratory that has the interindividual,
intergroup or collective relationships as its objects of study, with an impact on the social and
cultural relations within and outside the boundaries of the school, due to its ability to shed
light on the most likely reasons for disputes and asymmetries verified in the socio-cultural
context, in addition to suggesting mechanisms and means to combat the many forms of
inequality and exclusion, which often end up costly to society.

What is expected from this paper is not a definite answer, but an extensive and prosperous
dialogue about the aspects involved in the use of language and how productive it can be to
examine its use from the perspective of the intersection between those different approaches
dedicated to the study of (a) language.
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