Functional grammar

SARAH JANE S.SERIL DISCUSSANT

FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

FEATURES OF FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR • 1. It is based on the notion of choice

– it models grammar as a set of options ( a repertoire or resource).

• 2. It looks at the way in which grammar is used to construct texts in their context of use.

• 3. It is concerned with the way in which grammar is organized to make meaning.

IT IS CONCERNED WITH THE RESOURCE FOR:

1. analyzing experience – what is going on

2. analyzing interaction – who is communicating with whom

3. analyzing with ways in which messages are constructed.

In order to Model Grammar As a Context Sensitive, Meaning-making Resource, FG Looks Closely At the Different Contributions Made by the ff:

1. At the clause level, FG deals with resource for analyzing experience (Process type, Participants and Circumstances),participating in communication (mood and modality), packaging information (theme and cohesion). In addition, it is concerned for combining clauses into clause complexes (sentences).

• 2. At the phrase and group level, FG deals with resources constructing participants( noun groups), assessing events and setting them in time (verb groups), modifying events (adverb groups), qualifying processes(preposition phrases).

3. At the word class level, FG is concerned with resources for adapting words to clause, phrase and group structures. With in words, FG is concerned with resources for analyzing morphemes(inflection and derivations).

FUNCTIONAL THEORIES OF GRAMMAR• Functional theories of grammar are those approaches to

the study of language that see the functions of language and its elements to be the key to understanding linguistic processes and structures.

• Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out

• Functional theories of grammar differ from formal theories of grammar, in that the latter seeks to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of formal rules or operations, whereas the former defines the functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic elements that carry them out.

• This means that functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used in communicative context, and not just to the formal relations between linguistic elements.

SEVERAL DISTINCT GRAMMATICAL THEORIES THAT EMPLOY A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

• 1. The structuralist functionalism of the Prague school, was the earliest functionalist framework in the 1920s.• 2. Simon Dik’s functional discourse grammar, originally

developed in the 1970s and 80s. It has also been continuously developed by Linguist such as Kees Hengeveld. • 3. Michael Haliday’s systemic functional grammar.

Haliday draws on the work of Buhler and Malinowski.

STRUCTURALIST FUNCTIONALISM OF THE PRAGUE SCHOOL

Structuralism is a theoretical paradigm that emphasizes that elements of culture must be understood in terms of their relationships to a larger oversearching system of structure. Alternately, as summarized by philosophers Simon Blackburn; Structuralism is “the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitue a structure and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture.

• Structuralism originated in the early 1900s in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Sausure and the subsequent Prague, Moscow and Copenhagen linguistics. In the late 1950s and early 60s, when structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, an array of scholars in the humanities, borrowed Sausure’s concepts for use in their respective field of study. French anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss was arguably the 1st scholar, sparking a widespread interest in Structuralism

FUNCTIONAL DISCOURSE GRAMMAR BY SIMON C. DIK

FG and FDG are grammar models and theories motivated by functional theories of grammar. These theories explain how linguistic utterances are shaped, based on the goals and knowledge of natural language users. In doing so, it contrasts with Chomskyan transformational grammar. FDG has been developed as a successor to FG attempting to be more psychologically and pragmatically adequate functional grammar. The top-level unit of analysis in FDG is the discourse move not the sentence or the clause. This is a principle that sets FDG apart from many other linguistic theories, including its predecessor FG.

PRINCIPLES OF FUNCTIONAL DISCOURSE GRAMMAR

FDG explains the phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics and semantics in one linguistic theory. Accdg.to FDG, linguistics utterances are built top-down in this order by deciding upon: 1. The pragmatic aspects of the utterance 2. The semantic aspects of the utterance 3. The morphosyntactic aspects of the utterance 4. The phonological aspect of the utterance

ACCDG. TO FDG, FOUR COMPONENTS ARE INVOLVED IN BUILDING UP AN UTTERANCE:

1.The conceptual component, which is where the communicative intention that drives the utterance construction arises.

2.The grammatical component, where the utterance is formulated and encoded accdg. To the communicative intention

3.The contextual component, which contains all elements that can be referred to in the history of the discourse or in the environment

4.The output component, which realizes the utterance as sound, writing or singing.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR BY MICHAEL HALLIDAY

• SFG is part of social semiotic approach to language systemic functional linguistics. The term systemic refers to the view of language as “a network of systems, or interrelated sts of options for making meaning.” The term functional refers to Halliday’s view that language is as it is because bec. of what it has evolved to do. Grammar, for Halliday is described as system not as rules, on the basis that every grammatical structure involves a choice from a describable options.

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Traditionally the “choices” are viewed in terms of either the content or the structure of the language used. In SFG, language is analyzed in three ways (strata): semantics, phonology and lexicogrammar.SFG presents a view of language in terms of both structure(grammar) and words(lexis). The term “lexicogrammar” describes, this combined approach.

Three general functions of language(metafunctions)1. The ideational functions, resources for constructing experience2. The interpersonal functions, resources for enacting humans’ diverse and complex social

relations.3. The textual function, resources for enabling these two kinds of meaning to come

together

LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

• LFG is a grammar framework in theoretical linguistics, a variety of generative grammar. It is a type of phrase structure grammar, as opposed to a dependency grammar.

• The development of the theory was initiated by Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s, in reaction to the direction research in the area of transformational grammar had began to take. It mainly focuses on syntax, including its relation with morphology and semantics.

LFG views language as being made up of multiple dimensions of structure. Each of these dimensions is represented as a distinct structure with its own rules, concepts and form.

FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR IN DENMARK ( DANISH)

Danish functional school• The Danish school of functional linguistics was developed in an attempt to

combine modern functional grammar and cognitive linguistics with the best ideas and concepts of the earlier structuralist school. The school insist in the basic structural division of communication in planes of content and expression

• Danish functionalists also insist that language is fundamentally a means of communication between humans and is best understood and analysed through its communicative function. When analysing linguistic utterances, the content and expression planes are analysed separately, with the expression plane being analysed through traditional structural methods and the content plane being analysed mostly through methods from semantics and pragmatics.

• However it is assumed that structures on the expression plane mirrors structures on the content plane. This can be seen in the parallelism between the structure of Danish sentences as described by the structural syntactic model of Paul Diderichsen dividing utterances into three basic fields a foundation field, a nexus field and a content field, and the pragmatic structure of utterances that often use the foundation field for discourse pragmatic functions, the nexus field for illocutionary functions and the content field for the linguistic message. Danish functionalists assume that an utterance is not to be analysed from the minimal units and up, but rather from the maximal units and down, because speakers begin the construction of utterances by choosing what to say in a given situation, then by choosing the words to use and finally by building the sentence by means of sounds.

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