Week

Lecture topics

Readings

1

What is language? What is grammar?

We begin this unit by exploring some ideas about the nature of language including how it is that we come to be users of language. Language is more than grammar, so we also need to understand the place of grammar within language. While often thought of as ‘rules’, grammar is a resource for meaning. I’ll illustrate this point by looking at what verbs do.Verbs are at the centre of the most important grammatical unit, the clause. The verb is a structure that allows us to represent and construe process, flux and change. So, it’s time to move beyond the ‘verb is a doing word’ definition, to explore the power and beauty of the grammar of verbs.

Also, see my column here for a bit of background on the way grammar is explored in this unit.

Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (IFG):

Chapter 1

Using Functional Grammar (UFG): Chapter 1&2

2

Constituency: units in grammar

In week 1, we looked at the forms and functions of a key piece of structure in grammar, the ‘verbal group’. This week we extend our picture by looking at the other important units in grammar. As we know, language can be viewed from different points of view. The units that we study depend on how we are looking at language. If we are looking at sound or writing patterns, then we identify units relevant to those aspects of language. These units are different from units in grammar, or semantics. We will look at the grammatical units of clause, group and phrase, word, and morpheme. As always, to understand what we can 'see' in language structure we have to understand what motivates it, and relate it to the motif of 'choice'.

IFG: Chapter 2

UFG: Chapter 1&2

3

What is a clause?

To use language in the many and varied ways we interact, we need to put words into structures. The most important grammatical unit is the clause, because it is through the clause we create ‘experiential’, ‘interpersonal’ and ‘textual meanings’. In this lecture we will build on the two previous weeks by looking at whole clauses, and different types of clauses. We will even see clauses inside (i.e. ‘embedded in’) other clauses.

IFG: Chapter 2 (section 2.7)

UFG: Chapter 3

4

How do we join clauses together?

Sometimes our interactions are very short. Often they are not. Humans in all kinds of situations create extended texts. They do this by joining clauses together into long stretches of clauses. In this lecture, we look at the grammatical systems which underpin our ways of joining clauses together. We will also look at how we represent grammar as ‘systems of options’.

IFG: Chapter 7 (This is a long, detailed chapter. Please have a look at the first two sections 7.1 and 7.2 in particular, and browse through the rest of the chapter looking at the tables and examples)

UFG: Chapter 8

5

Clause as representation: language construing experience 1

Humans use language for meaning making of three kinds. This week we begin exploring how grammar allows us to make sense of experience, to turn experience into meaning that we can share with our nearest and dearest, or complete strangers. We will come back to the verbal group, and look at different kinds of verbs/processes, and how we use grammar to construe action, saying and thinking, and relations of identity and similarity.  

IFG: Chapter 5

UFG: Chapter 4

6

Clause as representation: language construing experience 2

PART 2

IFG: Chapter 5

UFG: Chapter 4

7

Clause as exchange: language enacting social relationships 1

Humans don't produce linguistic structure as an end in itself. We don't just talk, we talk to someone, even when that someone is someone we don't know or can never know. There is always an audience for our talk. There are many dimensions to our social relations. For instance, how do you talk to people who have some kind of power over you? How does your talk reflect a relation of familiarity or intimacy? When you talk to very young kids, or to elderly people, how does your language vary? These kinds of distinctions are reflected and made through linguistic choices. This week we begin looking at the grammar that enables us to enact our social relations.

IFG: Chapter 4

UFG: Chapter 5&6

8

Clause as exchange: language enacting social relationships 2

PART 2

IFG: Chapter 4

UFG: Chapter 5&6

9

Clause as message: language for creating coherent text 1

Language allows us to make meanings of two kinds simultaneously: meanings about the world, and meanings about the social relations that pertain to a given situation. How do we make all this hang together? The textual function is the grammar for creating coherent texts. This week we look into the options in grammar for the order of elements in a clause, and how this order has consequences for text structure and coherence.

IFG: Chapter 3

UFG: Chapter 7

10

Clause as message: language for creating coherent text 2

PART 2

IFG: Chapter 3

UFG: Chapter 7

11

The three functions of language: reviewing the course so far

This week we review all grammatical ideas and concepts introduced so far, looking at how to use them to analyse and interpret text.

UFG: Chapter 12

12

Language in context: when language breaks down

Language is meaningful because we weave our words into texts that hang together. Illness and injury can affect our language. Many professionals treat people who suffer language disorders, such as aphasia. This week we will have a guest lecture from Dr Scott Barnes, on language disorders. In this session we will look at what disordered speech looks like, some ways of analysing it and understanding it. We will put this discourse in the context of what makes a text cohesive and coherent.

Guest lecturer: Dr Scott Barnes

IFG: Chapter 9

UFG: Chapter 9

13

Language in context: spoken and written language

Language varies according to context. One key dimension of variation is the mode of contact e.g. whether we are communicating face-to-face, or via a written mode. If written, we could be writing a formal letter or texting a friend. The grammatical patterns in a text change, depending on the mode of contact. This week we will review the concepts and terminology introduced in this course, through looking at the grammatical differerences between speaking and writing.

Halliday, MAK. 1985. Spoken and Written Language. Geelong: Deakin University Press. (e-Reserve)