This example is not to criticise students or teachers. Thestudent would havemade the text hang together in the first placehad he known how. And theteacher would have explained in good faithhad he known explicitly howtexts, especially geography texts,worked. Systemic-functional grammar,presented in this book, perhapsmore than any other theory of language,explains how texts, inludingtexts read and written in schools, work.
Making Sense Of Functional Grammar Pdfl
Functional GrammarFunctional grammars view language as aresource for making meaning.These grammars attempt to describelanguage in actual use and so focus ontexts and their contexts.They are concerned not only with the structures butalso with howthose structures construct meaning. Functional grammarsstart withthe question, How are the meanings of this text realise?
Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a form of grammatical description originated by Michael Halliday.[1] It is part of a social semiotic approach to language called systemic functional linguistics. In these two terms, systemic refers to the view of language as "a network of systems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning";[2] functional refers to Halliday's view that language is as it is because of what it has evolved to do (see Metafunction). Thus, what he refers to as the multidimensional architecture of language "reflects the multidimensional nature of human experience and interpersonal relations."[3]
From early on in his account of language, Halliday has argued that it is inherently functional. His early papers on the grammar of English make reference to the "functional components" of language, as "generalized uses of language, which, since they seem to determine the nature of the language system, require to be incorporated into our account of that system."[12] Halliday argues that this functional organization of language "determines the form taken by grammatical structure".[13]
Halliday's theory sets out to explain how spoken and written texts construe meanings and how the resources of language are organised in open systems and functionally bound to meanings. It is a theory of language in use, creating systematic relations between choices and forms within the less abstract strata of grammar and phonology, on the one hand, and more abstract strata such as context of situation and context of culture on the other. It is a radically different theory of language from others which explore less abstract strata as autonomous systems, the most notable being Noam Chomsky's. Since the principal aim of systemic functional grammar is to represent the grammatical system as a resource for making meaning, it addresses different concerns. For example, it does not try to address Chomsky's thesis that there is a "finite rule system which generates all and only the grammatical sentences in a language".[citation needed] Halliday's theory encourages a more open approach to the definition of language as a resource; rather than focus on grammaticality as such, a systemic functional grammatical treatment focuses instead on the relative frequencies of choices made in uses of language and assumes that these relative frequencies reflect the probability that particular paths through the available resources will be chosen rather than others. Thus, SFG does not describe language as a finite rule system, but rather as a system, realised by instantiations, that is continuously expanded by the very instantiations that realise it and that is continuously reproduced and recreated with use.
Another way to understand the difference in concerns between systemic functional grammar and most variants of generative grammar is through Chomsky's claim that "linguistics is a sub-branch of psychology". Halliday investigates linguistics more as a sub-branch of sociology. SFG therefore pays much more attention to pragmatics and discourse semantics than is traditionally the case in formalism.
The orientation of systemic functional grammar has served to encourage several further grammatical accounts that deal with some perceived weaknesses of the theory and similarly orient to issues not seen to be addressed in more structural accounts. Examples include the model of Richard Hudson called word grammar, and William B. McGregor's Semiotic Grammar which revises the organization of the metafunctions.[26]
Making Sense of Functional Grammar is the first available workbook in systemic-functional grammar, designed to be used by teachers and teacher educators coming to grips with new English language curricula, researchers interested in approaches to discourse analysis, as well as a textbook for Bachelor or Master's degree courses. The introductory volume in a new series, "Making Sense of Language," it answers your initial questions about functional grammar and genre, how to describe the language used in your classroom, how to teach about the differences in written and spoken language, how to increase your students' awareness of how language is used, and much more; all in a clear and easy-to-follow, down-to-earth style. The authors' wide experience in language teaching and study means that the best of the available perspectives on systemic-functional linguistics have been incorporated into this up-to-date workbook. Both authors have taught grammar at undergraduate and post-graduate levels in both internal and external modes, as well as at various systemic-functional summer schools
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