Transcript Three kinds of meaning - Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia

Why study grammar?
• Knowledge of grammar facilitates
language learning
• It helps understand texts in English
• Language takes place in CONTEXT
• The meanings we construct in using
language are strictly linked to both cultural
and situational context in which language
is used
The Culture-Context relation
Non linguistic
level
Culture
situation
Language takes
place in CONTEXT
The meanings we
construct in using
language are strictly
linked to both
cultural and
situational context in
which language is
used
Semantics
(meanings)
Lexico-grammar
(wordings)
Linguistics
Level
Phonology/grapholo
gy (sounds/symbols)
Language is a set of lexicogrammatical options
realizing certain meanings
and being expressed
through the phonic or
graphic matter
Context of Situation
• Field
• Tenor
• Mode
Context of semantics
• Ideational
• Interpersonal
• Textual
Lexico-Grammar
•
•
•
•
•
•
Transitivity
Mood
Modality
Appraisal
Thematic Structure
Cohesive Devices
The Context of Culture
• Halliday (1994:xv): any evaluation of a text
requires an interpretation also of its context
• A theory of grammar should take into account
both texts and contexts, both situational and
cultural
• We understand the meanings of a sentence
because we know the vocabulary (lexis) and the
grammatical structure
• We understand the meaning of a speaker
because we know something of the culture in
which the texts are embedded.
Culture
• Beliefs, ideas and ideologies, worldviews
and values systems that are constructed in
language
The Context of Situation
• Context refers to non verbal environment
such as who’s talking to whom, when, and
where, and how. Context of situation can
be described by three variables:
• Field: both the kind of social activity
effected and the topic or subject matter.
Answer the question “What’s going on?“
The Context of Situation
• Tenor: the people involved in the language
event, the more permanent (social roles
and status) and more temporary
(discourse roles) relations established.
Answer the question “Who is talking part?”
• Mode: the function accorded to the text,
the rhetorical aim. Answer the questions,
“How’s language being used?”
Mode
• Definition: The part of the language plays which
includes:
• Channel of communication whether phonic (face
to face communication, radio, telephone) or
graphic (e.g. book, newspaper, etc.) or some
combination of the two.
• Medium: degree of spoken-ness/written-ness.
Whether the text is more lexically dense (high
incidence of lexical vs. grammatical words) and
packaged (e.g. in nominalized strings) or more
lexico-grammatically intricate (in complex
combination of clauses)
Mode
• Nature of the exchange: dialogic or
monologic, and whether it is spoken and
spontaneous or written-to-be-read, or
written-to-be-spoke, and thus prepared, or
at least semi prepared.
Medium
• It has to do with the degree of spokenness on a continuum.
• Lexical density (high incidence of lexical
vs. grammatical words) and grammatical
intricacy (complex clausal organization),
and with degrees of spontaneity.
Register
• Field, tenor and mode define the register to
which a text belongs.
• There is an inextricable, systematic association
between context and text (the extra-linguistics
situation and the linguistic/verbal realizations)
and vice versa:
• The context activates the meanings (that is the
semantics) that are realized in and by the
grammar (i.e. lexico-grammar)
Register
• Register is a culturally specific text-type
which results from using language to
accomplish something)
• Examples: lecture, research article,
various types of service-encounters)
Formalism VS Functionalism
• Formalist:
1) Grammar is an abstract set of rules.
2) The primary concern is with the forms of
grammatical structures and their
relationship to one another.
3) Grammar = morphology and syntax
4) Grammarians often use made up
sentences to illustrate rules.
Formalism VS Functionalism
• Functionalist: Grammar is a system of human
communication and also allows speakers to
make and exchange meanings.
• The primary concern is with the functions of
grammatical structure and with their meanings in
their contexts
• Grammar = lexico-grammar
• Grammarians aim at using sentences drawn
from real world sources, authentic pieces of
linguistic evidence
Note
• Formal analysis must at some stage take
account of meaning and function, and
functional analysis must at some stage
take account of form.
Why do we need FG?
• Two different conceptualization of grammar:
1) Language is a set of rules, rules for specifying
structure, for example the construction of a
transitive sentence with verb+ accusative
(penanda nomina)
2) This perspective is that of logic and philosophy
in the foregrounding of the sentence as the
basic unit of language is organized on a logical
model into Subject + Predicated.
3) Since the sentence is the basic unit, it is
studied in isolation.
Why do we need FG?
• In another view, language is a resource for
making meanings
• This perspective is that of the rhetoric and
ethnography in the foregrounding of the
text (discourse) as the basic unit of
language, organized according to the
rhetorical aim. Since text is the basic unit,
the sentence is studied in its discourse
environment.
Why do we need FG?
• We need a richer theory of grammar to meet the
challenges of the age of information
• The new needs of our society and new purposes
of language use corresponds a new theory of
language.
• For example: How do we help people learn a
foreign language? What is the best way to
explain and describe the way language works in
advertising a product?, etc.
Grammar-Meaning Connection
• Language is a semiotic system; meaning
is created in language (M.A.K. Halliday,
1994)
• Functional means that we are
foregrounding the role of grammar as a
resource for constructing meaning (M.A.K.
Halliday, 1994)
• Meaning is created in language indicates
connection between language, meaning,
thought, and reality.
Grammar-Meaning Connection
• The claim that Grammar is a resource for
making meaning indicates that grammar
equals meaning and vice versa
• Meanings are accessible to the speakers
via the grammar
• Grammar has internal meaning creation
role
Grammar-Meaning Connection
Constructed in
Lexico-grmmar
(wordings)
Semantics
(meanings)
Constructing
Summary
• Functional Grammar focuses on language
use
• Its descriptive, more than prescriptive in its
examination of actual occurrences of
spoken and written language and the
context of their use.
• It aims at showing how meaning is made
and understanding and interpreting texts