The Thoughts Of Plato In Formal And Systemic Functional Linguistics

Russell (1961: 136):

Thus we arrive at the conclusion that opinion is of the world presented to the senses, whereas knowledge is of a super-sensible eternal world; for instance, opinion is concerned with particular beautiful things, but knowledge is concerned with beauty in itself.

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This distinction, of opinion versus knowledge, can be related, in different ways, to both Chomskyan Formal Linguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics.

Chomskyan Formal Linguistics models knowledge of language, Competence, and is not concerned with the Performance of this Competence.  From a Platonic perspective, this would only amount to mere opinion, in any case.

Systemic Functional Linguistics models the distinction between 'particular beautiful things' and 'beauty in itself' in terms of instantiation, as instance (text) and potential (system), which it regards as two perspectives on the same phenomenon.  The study of instances of the language system is the concern of text linguistics, or discourse analysis; the study of the language system itself is the concern of theoretical linguistics.

From a Platonic perspective, discourse analysis is the domain of opinion, whereas theoretical linguistics is the domain of knowledge.

From a Systemic perspective, opinions can be construed as instances of knowledge, and knowledge can be construed as 'opinion potential'.