Modelling Genre through System Network

Working from a sociological perspective, systemic linguistics is essentially a theory about language as a resource, regarding language as the main source for constructing meanings. We use language to represent and interpret our everyday experience; we use language to interact with one another and to maintain our social relationships; we use language to express our feelings and to show our attitudes. In all these processes, language plays an essential part and it accompanies our everyday living. The resource, or the “code”, is represented in terms of a huge network of systems, or potential. Our linguistic behavior is the “actualization of that potential in real life situations” (Halliday, 1984: 5). Martin (1992: 3) has summarized the fundamental assumptions for a systemic model of language as the following: