Education for All <3

1. Muhammad Sheroz
M.Phil. English Linguistics
Riphah International University

2.  When people speak or write, they produce text.
 Text is what listeners and readers engage with and
interpret.
 The term ‘text’ refers to any instance of language, in
any medium, that makes sense to someone who knows
the language.
 We can characterize text as language functioning in
context.
 (cf. Halliday & Hasan, 1976: Ch. 1; Halliday, 2010).

3.  Language is, in the first instance, a resource for
making meaning; so text is a process of making
meaning in context.
 To a grammarian, text is a rich, many-faceted
phenomenon that ‘means’ in many different ways. It
can be explored from many different points of view.
 we can distinguish two main angles of vision:
(1) Text as an object in its own right.
(2) Text as an instrument for finding out about
something else.

4.  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 structure are best analyzed and
understood with reference to the functions they
carry out.

5.  Functional theories of grammar differ from formal
theories of grammar. In the latter seeks to define the
diff. 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 jus the formal
relations between linguistic elements.

6. 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.

7. 4. Role and reference grammar, developed by
Robert Van Valin.
5. Danish functional grammar combines
Saussurean/Hielmslevian structuralism with a
focus on pragmatics and discourse.
6. Lexical functional grammar, developed by
Joan Bresnan and Ronald Kaplan in the 1970s.

8. • Structuralism is a theoretical paradigm that
emphasizes that elements of culture must be
understood in terms of their relationships to a larger
over searching system of structure.
 Simon Blackburn says; Structuralism is “the belief that
phenomena of human life are not intelligible except
through their interrelations. These relations constitute
a structure and behind local variations in the surface
phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture.

9.  FDG is a grammar model and theory motivated by
functional theories of grammar. This theories
explain how linguistic utterances are shaped,
based on the goals and knowledge of natural
language users.
 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.

10.  FDG explains the phonology, morphosyntax,
pragmatics and semantics in one linguistic theory.
 According 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

11.  The conceptual component, which is where the
communicative intention that drives the utterance
construction arises.
 The grammatical component, where the utterance is
formulated and encoded according. To the
communicative intention
 The contextual component, which contains all
elements that can be referred to in the history of the
discourse or in the environment
 The output component, which realizes the utterance as
sound, writing or singing.

12.  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 elements of
options for making meaning.” The term functional refers to
Halliday’s view that language is as it is because 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.
 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.

13.  Three general functions of language (metafunctions)
 1. The ideational functions, resources for constructing
experience
 2. 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

14.  It is based on the notion of choice – it models
grammar as a set of options.
 It looks at the way in which grammar is used
to construct texts in their context of use.
 It is concerned with the way in which grammar
is organized to make meaning.
 Overall, it is concerned with the way that the
different kinds of meaning that contribute to
grammatical structure are comprehensively
addressed.

15.  1. analyzing experience – what is going on
 2. analyzing interaction – who is
communicating with whom
 3. analyzing with ways in which messages
are constructed.

16. 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).

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

18. 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).

19.  Much of our everyday experience is shaped and
defined by actions and events, thoughts and
perceptions, and it is an important function of the
system of language that it is able to account for these
various ‘goings on’ in the world.
 This means encoding into the grammar of the clause a
mechanism for capturing what we say, think and do. It
also means accommodating in grammar a host of more
abstract relations, such as those that pertain between
objects, circumstances and logical concepts.

20.  There are many ways of accounting in language for the
various events that constitute our ‘mental picture of
reality’
 There are often several ways of using the resources of
the language system to capture the same event in a
textual representation.
 The particular grammatical facility used for capturing
experience in language is the system of transitivity.

21. Transitivity normally picks out three key components of
processes.
 The first is the process itself, which is typically realised
in grammar by the verb phrase.
 The second is the participant(s) associated with the
process, typically realised by noun phrases.
 The third is the circumstance(s) associated with the
process, typically expressed by prepositional and
adverb phrases.

22. Existential processes Material processes
Mental processes Relational processes
Behavioural processes Verbal processes
Types of processes

23.  Material processes are simply processes of
doing. Associated with material processes
are two inherent participant roles which are:
 The Actor, an obligatory role in the process.
 A Goal, a role which may or may not be
involved in the process.

24. (1) I nipped Daniel.
Actor Process Goal
(2) The washing machine broke down.
Actor Process

25.  Mental processes constitute the second key process of
the transitivity system and are essentially processes of
sensing.
 Mental processes inhabit and reflect the world of
consciousness, and involve:
 cognition (encoded in verbs such as ‘thinking’ or
‘wondering’).
 reaction (as in ‘liking’ or ‘hating’).
 perception (as in ‘seeing’ or ‘hearing’).

26.  The two participant roles associated with
mental processes are:
 The Sensor (the conscious being that is
doing the sensing).
 The Phenomenon (the entity which is
sensed, felt, thought or seen).

27. (3) Mary understood the story. (cognition)
 Sensor Process Phenomenon
(4) Anil noticed the damp patch. (perception)
 Sensor Process Phenomenon
(5) Sohail liked lecture. (reaction)
 Sensor Process Phenomenon

28.  There is a type of process which to some extent sits at
the interface between material and mental processes, a
process which represents both the activities of
‘sensing’ and ‘doing’ called behavioural processes.
 Behavioural processes embody physiological actions
like ‘breathe’ or ‘cough’.
 They sometimes portray these processes as states of
consciousness as in ‘sigh’, ‘cry’ or ‘laugh’.
 They also represent processes of consciousness as
forms of behaviour, as in ‘stare’, ‘dream’ or ‘worry’.

29.  The key (and normally sole)
participant in behavioural processes is
the Behaver, the conscious entity who
is ‘behaving’.

30. (6) That student fell asleep in my lecture again.
 Behaver Process Circumstance
(7) She frowned at the mess.
 Behaver Process Circumstances

31.  These are processes of ‘saying’.
 the participant roles associated with verbalisation are:
(1) The Sayer (the producer of the speech).
(2) The Receiver (the entity to which the speech is
addressed).
(3) The Verbiage (that which gets said)

32. (8) Mary claimed that the story had been changed.
 Sayer Process Verbiage
(9) The minister announced the decision to
parliament.
 Sayer Process Verbiage
Receiver

33.  These are processes of ‘being’ in the specific sense of
establishing relationships between two entities.
Relational processes can be expressed in a number of
ways.
 There is however general agreement about three main
types of relational process.
intensive relational process
possessive relational process
circumstantial relational processes

34.  An intensive relational process posits a relationship of
equivalence, an ‘x is y’ connection, between two
entities.
 Examples:
 Allama Iqbal is our national poet.
 Ramzan is my father.

35.  A possessive relational process plots an ‘x has y’ type of
connection between two entities.
 Examples:
 Ali has a car.
 You have a book.

36.  circumstantial relational processes are where the
circumstantial element becomes upgraded, as it were,
so that it fulfils the role of a full participant in the
Process.
 The relationship is like ‘x is at/is in/is on/is with/ y’
configuration.
 Examples:
 Book is on the table.
 Ali is in the class.

37.  Existential processes constitute the sixth and last
category of the transitivity model.
 Existential processes typically include the word ‘there’
as a dummy subject.
 They normally only contain one participant role, the
‘Existent’.

38.  ‘Has there been a phone call?’
 Ali is standing there.

39.  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.

40. 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

41.  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.
 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.

42.  Role and reference grammar (RRG) is a functional
theory of language which allows an input text to be
represented in terms of its logical structure.
 Among the main features of RRG are the use of
lexical decomposition based upon semantics of David
Dowdy (1979), an analysis of clause structure, and the
use of a set of thematic roles organized into a
heirarchy in which the highest-ranking roles are
“Actor” (for the most active participant) and
“Undergoer.”

43.  In RRG, the description of a sentence in a particular
language is formulated in terms of:
 a. Its logical (semantic) structure and
communicative functions.
 b. The grammatical procedures that are available in
the language for the expressions of these meanings

44. CONCLUSION

45. THANK YOU