The functions of language

The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in human affairs. While some linguists may concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analyst is committed to an investigation of what that language is used for. While the formal approach has a long tradition, manifested in innumerable volumes of grammar, the functional approach is less well documented. Attempts to provide even a general set of labels for the principal functions of language have resulted in vague, and often confusing, terminology. We will adopt only two terms to describe the major functions of language and emphasise that this division is an analytic convenience. It would be unlikely that, on any occasion, a natural language utterance would be used to fulfil only one function, to the total exclusion of the other. That function which language serves in the expression of ‘content’ we will describe as transactional, and that function involved in expressing social relations and personal attitudes we will describe as interactional. Our distinction, ‘transactional / interactional’, stands in general correspondence to the functional dichotomies – ‘representative / expressive’, found in Bühler (1934), ‘referential / emotive’ (Jakobson, 1960), ‘ideational / interpersonal’ (Halliday, 1970b) and ‘descriptive / social-expressive’ (Lyons, 1977).