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]

•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.

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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
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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