Transcript Basic concepts in functional grammar

Functional Grammar – by and for
teachers
Dr Liz Walker
HKIEd English Department
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Reminder
• We are LANGUAGE TEACHERS. We do not
teach ‘social science/issues’ or ‘business’. We
teach the language use which makes ‘social
science’/social issues etc. Without language
use, ‘social issues’ as a field/topic cannot exist.
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Sample only: appropriate types of language use
for ‘Social Issues’ [English Lang Curriculum & Assessment Guide, 2007,
pp 44- 46]
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Pamphlet
Editorial
Letter to the editor
Survey
Report
Expository essay
– In 50 hours, probably 5 – 8 genres can be taught, and successfully
produced by students.
– Sample text grammar descriptions for the blue genres are provided.
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What is ‘Genre’
(p.7 Christie & Derewianka)
• Genre is everything we DO in speech and writing in a
culture.
• A genre is ‘a staged, goal-oriented social process
which is predictable and therefore teachable’.
• A text is ‘an instance of a genre’.
• Broad examples of ‘schooling’ genres productive for
life outside school are:
Recount; Story particularly Narrative; Procedure;
Report; Explanation; Exposition; Discussion; Response.
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Teaching language
• Our job as language teachers is to teach the
genres, or USES of language, within a given
domain of culture, e.g. ‘social issues’ or
‘business’ or ‘sports’ etc….
• We thus need to teach the grammar of
relevant TEXTS, not the grammar of
‘sentences’.
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Firstly, what is ‘grammar’?
• The meaning-making powerhouse of a
language.
• A powerful semogenic resource which we all
learn to control in mother tongue around our
second year of life.
• ‘A grammar’ is ‘a theory of wording’.
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What grammar do we teach?
• A language teacher’s mission is to help
students to understand:
– Why/how does the grammar of a particular text
construe/construct meaning?
– What does a particular text reveal about the
grammatical system of the language in which it is
produced?
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Why is there not one ‘grammar’ of English?
• Semiotic (meaning) systems are not yet
cracked by human beings.
• The discourse of the study of language
(linguistics) is horizontal, not vertical, as in the
‘hard’ sciences. (Bernstein, B.1996. Pedagogy, symbolic control & identity:
theory, research, critique. London:Taylor & Francis).
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Teaching-enriching concepts from a systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) view of language
• ‘Meta-functions’
• Refer to the most basic functions of language: what
is the message? who are the interactants & what is
their relationship? how does the message make
meaning?
• The concept of ‘meta-function’ is very useful for
teachers to help students understand how the
grammar of a language makes meaning in a given
text*in a given context = the text architecture.
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Reminder: What is ‘text’?
• When people speak or write, they produce
‘text’. A ‘text’ is any instance of language [..] in
use, that makes sense to someone who knows
the language (adapted from Halliday, rev’d by Mathiessen, 2004, p.3).
• A language teacher will always use text to help
students to understand:
– Why/how does the text mean what it means?
– What does the text reveal about the system of the
language in which it is produced?
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Metafunctions performed SIMULTANEOUSLY by the
grammar of ALL texts
Ideational: Experiential & logical meaning
• How the grammar construes information about a topic –
or about our experience of the world through noun
groups (incl adjectives), verb groups, adverb groups and
prepositional phrases..
Interpersonal meaning
• How the grammar positions interactants, expresses
interrelationships, attitudes, feelings through mood*,
modality, tense, pronouns, and appraisal* resources.
Textual meaning
• How the grammar builds up and organises the flow of the
text in relation to its context through Theme choices and
cohesion e.g. lexis, tenses, ellipsis, circumstantial adjuncts
& reference.
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Example of meanings made in a TEXT
Oxygen was first prepared by Joseph
Priestley in 1774. He prepared it by heating
mercuric oxide, but nowadays it is
produced commercially in large quantities
by a process called fractional distillation. It
is contained in both air and water and is
given off by plants in their respiratory
process.
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Take out nouns/verbs, no ‘topic’
• __________________by _______in ______.
___________by ____________, but
_________________in ________by
____________________. _________in both
______and ________and _________by
______in _________________.
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How the grammar of the sample text
makes 3 meanings
Because the nouns & verbs (oxygen, prepared, mercuric oxide, produced,
heating, process called fractional distillation, air, water, given off, plants…) are chosen,
the experiential field of ‘science’ is construed.
Because the declarative mood (S^F) is chosen, the
writer is ‘giving information’ to the reader.
Because remote/distant tense, passive voice without Actor, no
modals, no ‘you’, are chosen, the text construes the
message as ‘factual’, impersonal (not interactive, not
‘involving’ the reader).
Because the writer chooses consistent tenses, logical
referring pronouns (it, he), & logically interrelated
vocabulary the text construes a coherent message. 14
Experiential meaning – an extra note
• In expressing experiential meaning, the clause
‘represents’ experience.
• A clause usually comprises ‘a participant + a
process + a circumstance’, eg. This group +
meets + at Ning Po # 2 school.
• The process (verb) carries most meaning in a
clause, so we should analyse it first.
• Process types represent our experience too.
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Process types in SFL
• Process types represent our external world, our
internal world, and how we relate bits of experience
to another.
• External = processes of the physical world of matter
in doing, actions, events ~ ‘materialised’
• Internal = processes of the world of consciousness,
sensing, perceiving, emoting, imagining ~ ‘mental’
• Relating, identifying, classifying experience ~
‘relational’
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Lexical verb classifications correspond
to human experience
Having
attribute or
identity
Symbolizing
Saying
Existing
Being
Doing
Changing
Thinking
Sensing
Creating
Feeling
Seeing
Doing to,
acting
Behaving
Process types in SFL: forming a circle of our
world.
• Processes between ‘material’ and ‘mental’ are
‘behavioural’…the outer manifestations of
inner workings, physiological states…
• Processes between ‘mental’ and ‘relational’
are ‘verbal’…symbolic relationships
constructed in the human consciousness but
enacted in forms of language like saying…
• Processes between ‘relational’ and ‘material’
are ‘existential’ ….things ‘exist’.
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Remember…in schooling…
• no language = no meaning, no school subjects
• grammar makes meaning in texts, not
‘sentences’….
• no teaching of text grammar = no social or
academic meaning making by students
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Useful References
• Butt, D., Fahey, R., Feez, S., Spinks, S., & Yallop, C. (2000). Using functional
grammar: an explorer’s guide. Sydney: National Centre for English
Language Teaching and Research
• Christie, F. & Derewianka, B. (2008). School Discourse: learning to write
across the years of schooling. London and New York: Continuum
• Polias, J.(ed) (2005). Improving language and learning in public sector
schools. Hong Kong: Quality Assurance Division, Education & Manpower
Bureau
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