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.