*Cracks neck. "Yeah, I'll play."*
Greta Thunberg was arrested under the Terrorism Act for displaying a sign that read: "I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION PRISONERS".
The police allege she was displaying support for a proscribed (banned) organization. However, a linguistic analysis reveals a critical distinction. The police are reading keywords; grammar dictates she was supporting people, not an organization.
Here is how Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)—a tool used to analyse how language functions in real contexts—deconstructs the sign to show why the arrest is linguistically flawed.
In English, when we group words together to name something (like "Red delicious apple" or "Palestine Action Prisoners"), there is always one word that anchors the meaning. We call this the Head or the Thing. Everything else is just decoration or categorization.
Let's look at Greta's object of support: "Palestine Action Prisoners"
The Head (The Thing): PRISONERS
This is the core reality of the sentence. The physical beings she is referencing are incarcerated people.
The Classifier: PALESTINE ACTION
In grammar, this functions as a Classifier. Its only job is to tell us which type of prisoners we are talking about. It restricts the category.
To prove this, we can swap the classifier for something else. This is called the commutation test.
If she wrote "I support [remand] prisoners," she is not saying she "supports remand" (keeping people in jail). She is supporting the people subject to that condition.
If a lawyer says "I defend [murder] suspects," they are not "defending murder." They are defending the suspects.
The police have conflated the Classifier (the label) with the Thing (the people). Linguistically, you cannot simply lift the modifier "Palestine Action" out of the phrase and claim it is the object of her support. It is glued to the word "Prisoners."
Linguists use a system called Transitivity to map "who does what to whom." It traces the energy of the verb.
The Actor (Doer): "I" (Greta)
The Process (Verb): "Support"
The Goal (Target): "Prisoners"
Imagine the sentence as an arrow. The arrow of "Support" is fired by Greta. It flies over the words "Palestine Action" and lands squarely on "Prisoners."
Grammatical Reading: Greta → Support → Prisoners (who happen to be associated with Palestine Action).
Police Reading: Greta → Support → Palestine Action (the organization).
By ignoring the word "Prisoners," the legal interpretation creates a new sentence that Greta did not write. She is validating the human rights of the individuals (the Goal), not the manifesto of the group (the Classifier).
Language doesn't happen in a vacuum. We must look at the second line of the sign to understand the first. This is called Appraisal Analysis—how we judge value and stance.
The sign reads:
"I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION PRISONERS"
"I OPPOSE GENOCIDE"
The second line acts as a "decoder key" for the first.
"Oppose Genocide" sets a moral framework. It is a statement about humanitarian law and saving lives.
Because the bottom line is about human rights (opposing death/genocide), the top line must be read in the same context.
She is not supporting "Palestine Action" because she loves their logo or their specific tactics; she is supporting the prisoners because she views them as victims of the same system she is critiquing in line two. The sign frames the prisoners as humanitarian subjects (people suffering), not political agents (people acting).
The Verdict
The arrest relies on "Keyword Searching"—seeing a banned word and acting on it. But grammar relies on structure.
Structurally: She supported Prisoners.
Semantically: She supported Human Rights.
By ignoring the grammar of the Noun Group, the authorities effectively erased the word "Prisoners" from her sign, changing her statement from a defence of human rights to an endorsement of a banned group. 1/2
#HumanRights
#FreeSpeech
#RightToProtest
#CivilLiberties
#UKLaw
#GretaThunberg
#PalestineAction
#Activism
#SocialJustice
#PoliticalPrisoners
#LanguageAndPower
