English and the Curriculum

Food for thought

1. Sawyer asks of educators, 'What kind of knowledge about grammar might be of use in the secondary classroom?' and 'How can this best be deployed to the benefit to students?' (pg. 343). This unit encourages the use of functional grammar, or systemic functional linguistics (SFL). This is an approach to the study of language focused on how language works, or language as social. Four aspects of this view of language include:  

• language is functional;
• language serves different functions;
• language is a resources (for making meaning);
• language is influenced by the context of use.
  

2. Let's break these down further:

Language serves different functions:

• experiential/ideational function - language is used to represent our world experiences;
• interpersonal function - the way we use language to interact with others;
• textual function - the way we use language to create organised and cohesive written and spoken texts.
  

Language is a resource:

We use different lexical and grammatical resources to represent different kinds of meaning. These are:

• what's going on, who's involved, under what circumstances (experential/ideational meanings)
  
• roles relationships and feelings of interactants (interpersonal meanings)
  
• different modes and channels of communication (textual meanings)
  

Language is influenced by contexts

The texts we use and the meanings we make with language are influenced by factors outside of language:

• cultural context;
• socio-cultural context;
• specific context;
• types of learning.
  

3. Below Professor Mary Scleppegrell describes how teachers can use functional grammar to explore language and meaning. Functional grammar can give students and teachers the language and tools to talk about texts, language and meaning.

4. In Functional Grammar, the clause is the basic unit of meaning. words create word groups, word groups create clauses, clauses create sentences, sentences create paragraphs, and paragraphs create texts. Clauses are made up of a process, circumstance and participant (these are word groups). The examination of these word groups shed much light on how language is used to create meaning. For example, Williams' article illustrates the examination of texts using functional grammar.

5. The teaching of grammar needs to be explicitly taught: students need to learn the language of language in order to talk and write about it. However, grammar teaching should be integrated into learning programs and lessons, and grammar needs to be examined int eh context of function and meaning. Students can examine, for instance, how word groups contribute to certain representation of groups and events. Students can ask, how has the writer written this text? What meaning is expressed through the choices the author has made?

6. The New Learning website offers a brief description of functional grammar and its significance.