Week 1 - functional grammar
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Functional grammar describes the relationship between grammatical structures and meanings. It focuses on analyzing experience, interaction, and message construction. There are four assumptions of systemic functional grammar: language is functional, semantic, contextual, and semiotic. It creates meanings based on context through systems of transitivity, mood, and theme that represent experience, interaction, and text organization simultaneously.
Week 1 - functional grammar
- 1. WEEK 1-2
- 2. What is Functional Grammar? • Functional grammar describes the relationship between grammatical structures and meanings
- 3. It focuses on language resources for: • Analyzing experience ( what is going on) – Subject matter ( field) - what about ? • Analyzing interaction ( who is communicating with whom) – Roles and relationships ( tenor) – who to? • Analyzing the ways messages are constructed – Mode and medium ( mode) – how to?
- 4. 4 assumptions of SFG: • Language is: – FUNCTIONAL – SEMANTIC – CONTEXTUAL – SEMIOTIC
- 5. Why is Language functional? • The function of language is to create meanings.
- 6. Why is Language contextual? • Because meanings are influenced by the context in which they are made.
- 10. Why is Language semiotic? • Because language offers us different options or choices for creating meaning. We make meanings by choosing. • a finite set of options or oppositions • The choices in the system are discrete • It is the oppositions, not the substance, in the system that are important
- 11. Why is Language semantic? • Because its function is to create meanings . • Language creates 3 different kinds of meaning simultaneously ( METAFUNCTIONS): – EXPERIENTIAL OR LOGICAL ( System of transitivity) – INTERPERSONAL ( System of Mood) – TEXTUAL ( System of theme)
- 12. METAFUNCTIONS: • Experiential meaning: has to do with the way language represent our experience of the world as well as the inner world of thought and feelings • Interpersonal meaning: has to do with the way language express the writer’s or speaker’s reaction towards others and writer’s or speaker’s attitude towards a subject • Textual meaning: has to do with the way a text is organized. Language use to organize experiential and interpersonal meanings into a linear and coherent whole.