Cosmogonic Myth Through Systemic Functional Linguistics [1]

The Gospel of John (1:1):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this symbolism from Abrahamic mythology can be interpreted as construing the genesis of language, as meaning potential, and if it is language that primarily distinguishes humans from other apes, as construing the genesis of humanity itself.

The first clause construes time beginning with the existence of the Word (Greek logos 'word', 'speech', 'discourse'); that is, with the existence of language:

in the beginning	was	the Word
Location: time	Process: existential	Existent

The second clause extends this by construing God (creator) as an Attribute of language:

and	the Word	was	with God
	Carrier	Process: attributive	Attribute: accompaniment

And the third clause extends this by construing the identity of language and its creator:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identifier Token	Process: identifying	Identified Value

in which the creator of meaning is encoded by reference to the meaning created, and/or:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identified Token	Process: identifying	Identifier Value

in which the meaning created is decoded by reference to the creator of meaning.

If, on the other hand, the clause is interpreted as receptive, rather than operative, then either:

and	the Word	was	God
	Identifier Value	Process: identifying	Identified Token

the creator of meaning is decoded by reference to the meaning created, or

and	the Word	was	God
	Identified Value	Process: identifying	Identifier Token

the meaning created is encoded by reference to the creator of meaning.

Alternatively, on an attributive reading (e.g. George was king):

and	the Word	was	God
	Carrier	Process: attributive	Attribute

the meaning created is an instance of the creator of meaning (as meaning potential).

∞

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, mythologies are sub-potentials of cultural semiotic systems that are realised in — and construed by — language in the first instance (followed by other semiotic systems made possible by language).

Mythologies are the oldest surviving reconstruals of experience, and were made possible by the stratification of the content plane of language into wording and meaning.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 25):

This stratification of the content plane had immense significance in the evolution of the human species — it is not an exaggeration to say that it turned Homo ... into Homo sapiens. It opened up the power of language and in so doing created the modern human brain.

And it was the stratification of content into wording and meaning that made metaphor possible. Where science uses grammatical metaphor to understand the environments in which humans must fit, mythology uses lexical metaphor to construe ways of fitting into physical and social environments.