Abstract:Language is a dynamic system. Therefore, with the development of language, the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Corpus Linguistics (CL) also need to be amended and improved constantly.

Corpus Linguistics (CL) and SFL are complementary to each other. SFL needs CL to provide a methodology for language study, and at the same time, CL itself begins to pay more and more attention to a theory system hiding in the massive language facts found in corpus. Corpus is not simply a text that is made up of piles of arbitrary language materials. The construction of corpus should be based on some certain linguistic theories, otherwise, it cannot be called corpus. As what corpus presents are the practical applications of language, Halliday's SFL theory is a comparatively good foundation for the construction of corpus. He used probability to present effectively the language system and its choice, thus enriched and developed the theoretical system of SFL. A nowadays important tendency is to make the most of multifarious corpus sources to embed the language system. In recent years, SFL has more and more concerned with quantitative methods in language analysis. SFL is a probabilistic system that requires quantitative analysis. Halliday's incorporating of the notion of probability has greatly enriched the theoretical system of SFL.

This paper will mainly discuss connections between CL and SFL, and the influences and functions to each other, especially how they get improved and perfected through the important medium-probability.

Key words: Meaning; SFL; Probability; CL; Choice

Contents

中文摘要

Abstract

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

Chapter 2 Convergence and Divergence of SFL and CL-3

2.1 A Brief Introduction of SFL-3

2.2 About Corpus Linguistics-4

2.3 Comparison and Contrast Between These Two Approaches-5

Chapter 3 Functions of CL to SFL-7

3.1 Probability and Corpus-7

3.2 Why Corpus is Drew into the Analysis of SFL Choice of Grammar-7

3.3 What is Chosen-8

Chapter 4 Influences of SFL to CL-12

4.1 Structure to Meaning-12

4.2 Probability-13

Chapter 5 Conclusion-15

References-17

Acknowledgements-18