A Genre-based model of language: Understanding grammar through text functions
1. A Genre-based
model of language
Knapp,
Peter.
Watkins,
Megan
Written Expression
IV
An approach to teaching writing
2. What is a genre-based model of
language?
Underlying genre-based approach is the model of Systemic Functional Linguistics
Language is processed and understood in the form of TEXT. Any meaning -
- producing event.
2 KEY perspectives to TEXT
TEXT as a product or thing in itself that can be recorded,
analysed and discussed..
TEXT as a process that is the outcome of a socially
produced occasion.
3. Language is:
NATURAL
& CULTURAL
INDIVIDUAL
& SOCIAL
How do we learn to use Language?
MISCONCEPTIONS
Learning to WRITE requires a range of
explicit teaching methodologies
throughout all the stages of learning.
4. Speech
Writing
Both Speech and Writing are
forms of communications that
use language as medium.
Exists in SOUNDS
Is TEMPORAL
Is IMMEDIATE
Is SEQUENTIAL
Is linked by Intonational
means of the voice
There is little editing
possibility.
Is an inscription
Exists in a spatial medium
Takes language out of the
constraints and immediacy of
time.
Arranges language
hierarchically
5. While language
is produced by individuals,the
shape and structure of it is to
a large degree socially
determined.
Language as a
Social Process
Explains & analyses
arrangements of
Language / TEXTS as
Grammatical structures
formed by individuals
in SOCIAL CONTEXTS
To serve specific
social NEEDS and
REQUIREMENTS
What for?
To provide students with the ability
to use the codes of writing
effectively and efficiently, not
merely rules and formulas so that they
can become competent, confident and
articulate users of the English
language
6. Four perspectives of Language
Are always produced in
a CONTEXT
Are never completely
individual or original
Are produced by SOCIAL
SUBJECTS in SOCIAL
ENVIRONMENTS
TEXTS
Context of SITUATION.
The immediate environment
in which texts are produced
Context of CULTURE.
The system of beliefs, values
and attitudes speakers bring
with them into any social
interaction.
For Halliday, Context is seen as having the potential
to ‘actualise’ the language event in the form of a
text.
7. Halliday’s 3 Metafuntions of Language
INTERPERSONAL
TEXTUAL IDEATIONAL
The social relationship
between the participants
The content being
talked or written about
The mode or medium
of the language event
Every text is UNIQUE, due to the
dynamic relationship between CONTEXT
& TEXT
Knapp & Watkins
8. The language
processes
involved in doing
things with
language,e.g
describing.
We use different
structural and
grammatical
resources when we
engage in different
genres.
Genre is an organising concept for
our cultural practices.
Any field of genres constitutes a network
of contrasts according to a variety of
parameters.
Is place, occasion, function, behaviour,
and interactional structures.
Cultural competence involves knowing the
appropriateness principle for any genre.
Freadman
9. The ‘Sydney School’ approach
Language and text as a System delivered
through networks and structures, over
the individual, dynamic, performative
aspects of language encounters..
It accounts for meaning being
determined by the language system and
structures of texts.
Texts are produced in and determined by,
social contexts, so that it is possible to
identify the determining social elements
in the structure and grammar of
individual texts.
REGISTER
The individual characteristics of
a text as determined by its
context.
Genres are classified
according to their social to
their social PURPOSE and
identified according to the
stages they move through to
attain it.
Martin’s
model of
language Proposes another level above
genre IDEOLOGY. ‘The system of
coding orientations constituting a
culture´(Martin 1992, p. 501).
This level determines who has
access to the powerful genres and
is therefore crucial to the effective
redistribution of power in the
social order.
10. Kress (1989)
Genres being formed out of the dynamics of social
purpose.
‘Parole’ everyday usage.
Genres as ‘forms of text’ rather than ‘text types’
‘Parole’ or
everyday usage
‘Langue’or language
system
What social dynamics
are at play here?
What stages has this
text been through to
reach its purpose?
Systemic-functionalist
focus
Kress’s approach
Wittgenstein (1953) Text’s as Language games.
Each ‘game’ can be defined in relation to
the rules specifying their properties and
uses.
Language & meaning are always performed
and exchanged by language-users within the
parameters of a shared understanding of
rules and conventions. LANGUAGE GAMES
Meaning in terms of DOING and
performing.
11. A set of dispositions that incline individuals to act
in certain ways.
These, are acquired through an individual’s day-to-
day encounters in the world with early childhood
experiences being particularly important.
The HABITUS provides the individuals with a sense
of HOW to act and respond in the course of their
daily lives.
It orients the individual’s actions and inclinations
without extrictly determining them.
12. Genre
s
Are part of a system.
Are structured.
Are formed in the processes of
social interactions.
A core set of generic processes.
GENRES
Social processes that:
describe
Ordering
things into
common sense
explain instruct argue
Sequencing
people & events in
time and space
narrate
Expanding
a proposition to
persuade
Sequencing
actions or
behaviours
logically
Sequencing
phenomena in
temporal
relationshipIt enables a developmental approach
to teaching what allows writers to
build on and develop from what they
already know about each genre
Through teaching aspects of genres
such as structure and grammar,
writers will realise the generic
Purpose of their texts.
This type of approach has no problem
with multi-generic texts. What really
matters is that we know what
the text is doing rather than
labelling it
Due to the proliferation of
informationtechnologies,students
need to develop competencies in
reading and constructingmulti-
modal texts.
-Personal
descriptions
-Commonsense
descriptions
-Technical
descriptions
-Information
reports
-Scientific
reports
-Definitions
-Explanations
of How
-Explanations
of Why
-Elaborations
-Illustrations
-Accounts
-Explanation
essays
-Procedures
-Instructions
-Manuals
-Recipes
-Directions
-Essays
-Expositions
-Discussions
-Debates
-Interpretations
-Evaluations
-Personal
recounts
-Historical
recounts
-Stories
-Fairy tales
-Myths
-Fables
-Narratives
P
R
O
C
E
S
S
E
S
P
R
O
D
U
C
T
S
Science experiments - Reviews - Travelogues - Commentaries - Interviews
Letters - News Stories - Articles - Web Pages
MULTI - GENERIC PRODUCTS
13. Texts can be classified
and organised in a
multitude of ways,
according to established
conventions.
A text is any completed act of
communication.
Different types of texts have
distinctive characteristics,
depending on what they are
made to do.
Language, as a system of
communication, is organised as
cohesive units we call TEXT.
As far as speech and
writing are concerned,
a text stands alone as
an act of
communication.
14. Text Classifications.
Literary texts Factual texts Media texts
Texts that reflect
and interpret
individual and
social life.
They use language in
a way that moves it
beyond the concrete
representational and
functional modes.
The language used
enables readers to
engage with the text
and incorporate
their own meanings
and understandings
with those of the
writer.
Texts that have the
primary aim of
communicating
knowledge as it has
been educationally
defined, classified
and constructed.
These texts include
all day-to-day type
of texts we use to
´get things done´.
Any text used in
channel of mass
communication such
as print,cable,
broadcasting, etc.
The shape of this
kind of texts is
determined to some
extent by the
technology employed
by the particular
media.
15. Systemic-functional
grammar.
Genre & grammar
based approach
Forges a relationship
between context &
grammar
Relies upon the
relationship between
social purpose and
available grammatical
resources.
Without Genre, grammar is too abstract
to be effectively teachable.
Grammar only
becomes meaningful
when it is linked to the
purpose and
functions of texts.
What is Grammar?
How particular texts are put
together.
A name for the resources available to user
of a language system for producing texts.
A knowledge of grammar by a speaker or writer
shifts language use from the implicit and
unconscious to a conscious manipulation of
language and choice of appropriate texts.
16. A Genre-based grammar focuses on the manner through which different language
processes or genres in writing are coded in distinct and recognisable ways.
A text is STRUCTURED & ORGANISED due to the characteristics of particular
genres in relation to: AUDIENCE - MESSAGE - STRUCTURE
All the parts of the text are STRUCTURED to make the text effective as Written Communication
ORGANISED
CODED
These are used to
serve the PURPOSES of
language users.
17. LANGUAGE
Serves the intentions of
those who use it.
Has an effect on the
audience.
Grammar deals with language in 3 ways.
Syntactical
Generic
Textual
Grammatical Terms 2 categories
Formal Functional
How the English
language is put together.
Classifies the bits &
pieces that constitute
sentences and texts.
What the language is
doing / being done to do.
Understanding what the
bits & pieces are doing.
The more we know about
what the language is
doing, the greater chance
we will have to make it
work for uf
FIGURAL ASPECTS of grammar Look at HOW
language communicates beyond the concrete
representational level. HOW language can be
used to create IMAGES to carry additional
meaning.
18. Bibliography
Knapp,P. and Watkins, M. (2005)Genre,
text, grammar.Technologies for teaching
and assessing writing.Sydney: University
of New South Wales Press Ltd.