Abstract

Although functional grammar has been widely considered a valuable resource for discourse analysis, this paper poses the question: Are we taking full advantage of what systemicists suggest? The purpose here is to outline a methodological approach compatible with a critical social dimension of discourse that takes the idea of social function and inequality as a starting point of analysis. The linguistic instruments presented are premised both on a combination of lexicogrammatical and discourse semantics strata and on a three-levelled model of context in which the concepts of institution, ideology, and power come into play. As illustrated through the creation of this methodological proposal, establishing connections between theoretical statements and methods of analysis may help DA to unveil deficiencies in functional instruments and to work out the means to solve them.