1. Generalities
It
has to express our interpretation of the world as we experience it
(ideational/representational functional) and it helps us interact with others
in order to bring changes to our environment (interpersonal function). In other
words, grammar helps us organize our message in order to enable representation
and interaction.
The
regular patterns of different kinds reflect the uses which a language serves.
For example, “declarative”, “interrogative”, “imperative” structural patterns
(patterns of the Verb Group) help us to express a multitude of types of social
behavior, whereas Nominal Group patterns enable us to encode information about
entities: people, events, things, abstractions, etc. If we come to describe patterns involving
syntactic categories (Subjects, Objects, Themes, etc) then we expand our
analysis beyond the one-to-one relationship between them, to larger units:
CONTEXT, CO-TEXT in the speaker-hearer relationship.
Each
linguistic element is seen not in isolation but in relation to others, since it
has potential to realize different functions. From a multitude of patterns
speakers are free to chose those patterns which best convey the message at
every stage of their interaction with other speakers.
A
communicative/functional grammar is a new direction in grammar writing devoted
to the uses of grammar, rather than to grammatical structure, employing a
communicative rather than structural approach. The conceptual framework
of this grammar is a functional rather than a formal one. It is functional in
three closely related senses, in interpretation of texts, of systems and of elements of
linguistic structures.
The conventional, traditional method of
presenting English grammar in terms of structure, of its constitutive elements
has a certain drawback in itself. It discuss elements in their individuality,
underlining less the relations existing between them. Thus for example, in such
grammar notions of time occur, or may be dealt with in four different places:
the tense of the verb, time adverbs, prepositional phrases denoting time,
temporal conjunctions and clauses. The student who is primarily interested in
making use of the language will find it a boring and tedious job to look in
detail at the theoretical aspects of grammar structures jumping from one place
to another. The student will therefore benefit systematically related to
meanings, uses and situations. (See G. Leech / J. Svartvik)
This
“unconventional” type of grammar is designed to show how the language is used.
Every text, said or written, unfolds in some
context of use; furthermore, it is the uses of language that, in time, have
shaped the system. Ever since it was intended, language has evolved to satisfy
human needs and will continue to evolve along with humankind. Therefore, the
way language is organized is functional with respect to these needs. From this
point of view as M. A. K. Halliday puts it, a functional grammar is essentially
a “natural” grammar, in the sense that everything in it can be explained by
reference to how language is used.
Secondly, the fundamental components of meaning in
language are functional components. According to Halliday, “all languages are
organized around two main kinds of meaning: the “ideational” (or
reflective) and the “interpersonal” (or active). These two components,
also known as “metafunctions,” are [practically] manifestations in the
linguistic system of the two very general purposes which underline all uses of
the language: to understand the
environment (ideational), and to act on
the others in it (interpersonal).”
Thirdly, it is a matter of common knowledge that each
element in a language should be explained closely related to its function
within the linguistic system. In other words, each part is interpreted as functional
with respect to the whole. In traditional grammar (linguistics) from its
beginning in ancient Greece, first the forms of the words were studied
(morphology) and then the forms of sentences (syntax). In a functional grammar
the direction is reversed. A particular language is interpreted as a system of
meanings, accompanied by forms through which the meanings can be realized.
Therefore, the forms of a language become and are treated as means to an end,
rather than an end in themselves.
The relation between semantics and grammar is one of realization,
that is, the word “realizes” or encodes the meaning. In turn, the wording “is
realized” by sound and writing. Nevertheless, there is really no use in asking
which determines which, as the relation is a symbolic one. It is not possible
to point to each symbol as an isolate item and ask what it means; the meaning
is encoded in the wording as an integrated whole. The choice of one particular
item may mean one thing, its place in the syntagm another, its combination with
something else another, and its internal organization yet another. So, what
grammar does indeed, is to sort out all these possible variables and assign
them to their specific semantic functions.
Traditional grammar stops at sentence level. Below the
sentence, the typical relationship is a constructional one, of parts into
wholes. In a functional grammar this means an organic configuration of elements
each having its own particular functions with respect to the whole (most
elements in the grammatical structure are multifunctional). Two minor motifs
are introduced into this constructional type:
(1) structural
patterns of another kind that are more like the dynamic processes of text
formation, and
(2) non-structural
forms of organization that create cohesion — reference, ellipsis etc.
Above the sentence, the non-constructional forms of
organization take over and become the norm, while only in certain cases, i.e.
in particular kinds of text, are there recognizable units. In addition, the
sequence in which things occur is no longer a variable available for realizing
functional relationships; like the Subject before or after the Finite verb.
Looked at from this angle, a sentence is the smallest unit that cannot be
displaced in sequence. Changing the order of sentences in a text is as
meaningless as putting the end before the beginning. So, the sentence does
indeed constitute a significant border post, just like the word. Both are units
in grammar that are not so sharply set off from one another. On the other hand,
it is indeed true that the words get used over again more often than sentences
do, much of the time a speaker does create new sentences that are new to him.
But speakers also create new wordings; the larger the syntagm, the more likely
it is to be original. A few recently created wordings: busybodyish,
obstinacities, unselfasuredness—forms that the average speaker has
obviously not yet stored for use. The natural tendency is to regard a
text as a product, presented to us as a piece of writing. Even when we admit
the category of “spoken text”, the latter is gradually turned into written text
via the act of capturing on tape and transcription into written form. Some
linguists thought of the text as Process, they referred to language as system
and process.
This Process / Product distinction
corresponds to that between our experience of speech and our experience of
writing: writing exists, whereas speech happens. A written text is presented to
us as product; we attend to it as product. Spoken language, on the other hand,
is presented to us as process and, like many processes, it is characterized by
a continuous flow.
Traditionally, grammar has always been the grammar of
written language and it has always been a product grammar. Nevertheless, in its
earliest origins classical Greek grammar was a grammar of speech and the first
attempts to elaborate syntax were tied to rhetoric. But Aristotle took grammar
out of rhetoric into logic, and since then it has been mainly a grammar of
written discourse. In its turn, the latter became the foundation of medieval
and renaissance syntax; and that is the received (accepted) “traditional
grammar” that is still in use today. It is relatively unsuited to the spoken
language, which needs a more dynamic and less constructional form of
representation. The reason lies in the fact that the potential of the system is
more richly developed, and more fully revealed in speech.
On the one hand, mention must be made of the unconscious
nature of spoken language, responding continually to the small but subtle
changes in its environment, both verbal and non-verbal. The context of spoken
language is, as we have already mentioned before, in a constant state of flux,
and the language, in turn, has to be equally mobile and alert.
On the other hand, much of what the written language
achieves lexically is get by the spoken language through grammar. In
fact, speech is no less complex than writing, but the two gain their complexity
in different ways. The complexity of writing lies in its density, in the act of
packing together the lexical content in simple grammatical frames, whereas the
complexity of spoken language lies in the mobile and intricate phrasing, much
of the meaning being expressed by grammar rather then by vocabulary.
Consequently, the sentence structure is highly complex in speech reaching
degrees of complexity that are rarely attained in writing.
The basic opposition, in grammars of the second half
of the 20th century, is not between the “structuralist” and the “generative”,
as it appeared in the public debates of the l960s, but rather between those
that are syntagmatic in orientation (formal grammars having structure as their
main organizing concept, and bringing in special devices to relate one
structure to another) and those that are paradigmatic in orientation (functional
grammars/systemic grammars which describe
something and then relate it to everything else, because the description of
any feature is its relationship to all the others). In other words, the
former interpret a language as a list of structures, among which regular
relationships may be established. They tend to emphasize universal features
of language, to take grammar as the foundation of language, and to be organized
around the sentence. The latter interpret a language as a network of relations,
with structures participating in the realization of these relationships; they
tend to emphasize variables among different languages, they take semantics as
the foundation, and thus, tend to be organized around text, or discourse.
Now, irrespective of this basic opposition, a grammar
is an attempt to crack the code of a particular language, and each language has
its own semantic code, which is the grammatical system as a whole. To
understand the code, we need an overview of the grammatical system; both in order
to confront one part of it with another, and in order to interpret texts
analyzed in the code. Whether the text is literature, or classroom discourse,
or political or commercial propaganda, the basic grammar of the clause complex,
the clause, the prepositional phrase, verbal and nominal group, and information
unit, will always be involved. As already remarked, we have as yet no
comprehensive semantics. However, we can attempt a comprehensive view of
grammar; and for any code-oriented investigation, this is essential. You cannot
interpret a text in its context of culture without an overall picture of the
grammar through which it is encoded.
To sum it up: grammar is the central processing
unit of a language, where meanings are accepted from different metafunctional
inputs and connected together to form wordings. Without a grammar in the
system, it would be impossible to mean more than one thing at once. In order to
understand how language works we have to engage its grammar. We have to get at
it through the meaning or through the expression in to discuss grammatical
forms and structures in a systematic order.
In this respect, we will undertake a four-step
investigation of the different types of formal units [ranging from: word,
phrase or clause, to the sentence, to the utterance and to the discourse or the
text] by focusing on four different levels:
(1) concepts,
(2) information,
reality and belief,
(3) mood, emotion
and attitude,
(4) meanings in connected discourse.
The first level is that of notional or conceptual
meaning, with the basic categories of grammar: “number”, “definite meaning”,
“amount”, “time”, “manner”, and “degree”. The structural units dealt with here
are situated below the sentence level: i.e. words, phrases or clauses.
The second level represents logical communication, the
interaction between Speaker and Hearer. In it, we make use of the categories
from the previous section to make judgments about truth and falsehood and to
give and get information about the world, via the categories of “statements,
questions and responses”, “affirmation and denial”, “possibility”, and
“certainty”. The structural unit dealt with here is the sentence.
The third level focuses on the attitudes and behavior
of the speaker and of the hearer. At the speaker’s end, language can express
attitudes and emotions, while at the hearer’s end it can control or influence
the latter’s actions and attitudes. This occurs through speech acts such as commanding,
suggesting, advising, threatening, promising, in fact, speech acts
belonging to the “pragmatic” aspect of communication, the unit that we are
dealing here with is the utterance, which may or may not correspond to a
sentence in length.
Finally yet importantly, the fourth level refers to
the organizational aspect of communication. The question that arises here
focuses, on how our thoughts should be arranged, the order and how they should
be put and bound together in order to communicate in the most appropriate way.
Grammar is flexible enough to offer a considerable choice in such matters. This
may be called the “textual” or “discourse” aspect of communication and it
concerns the composition of a whole text or discourse, not just the way we
construct a single sentence.
Briefly, the four sections represent a rational progress
from the most limited and detailed sphere of meaning to the most general one.
They will not be discussed independently but rather in interrelationship.
To use a language properly, we have to know the
grammatical structures of that particular language and their meanings. But we
must also know what forms of language are appropriate for given situations.
English in this respect, like any other language, is marked by “variety labels”
characteristic either of a particular geographical area, of regional dialects
or of a particular kind of situation (formal, informal, polite, familiar).
These labels actually remind us that the English language is, in a sense, not a
single language used by over three hundred million of native speakers, but many
languages, many varieties of English.
2. Types of language
1.
Written and spoken English
Spoken English tends to be different
from written English. In writing we usually have sufficient time to plan our
message, to think about it carefully while writing, and to revise it
afterwards, whereas in speech (unless it is a lecture, prepared in advance), we
have not much time at our disposal and we must shape the message during the
speech act. We often use in speech words and phrases like: well, you see,
er, um, kind of thus adding little information or filling the gaps with
“hesitation fillers” while we think of what to say next. We may also fail to
conclude sentences or even mix up one
grammatical construction with another. The grammar of the spoken language is
simpler and less strictly constructed than that of the written language. On the
other hand, the speaker is also able to rely on features of intonation, which
tell us a great deal more than written punctuation.
2.
Formal and informal English ,
Formal language is used publicly for some’ serious,
purpose and is nearly always written: in official reports, business letters and
regulations. Exceptionally it is used in speech, in formal public speeches.
There are various degrees of formality:
(1) casual conversation,
(2) fairly neutral style or
(3) the formal, stiff style occurring in a written report:
e.g. When his dad died, Pete had to get another
job. (1)
After
his father’s death, Peter had to change his job. (2)
On
the decease of his father, Mr. Brown was obliged to seek alternative
employment. (3) ,
Informal language (colloquial) is used in private
conversation, in private letters, nowadays also used in public communication:
adverts, popular newspaper (media) etc. In terms of vocabulary there are many
differences between formal and informal English. Much of the vocabulary in
formal English is of French, Latin, and Greek origin, while in informal
language we replace them by words or phrases of Anglo-Saxon origin: commence,
continue, conclude vs. begin, keep (up)/go on, and end.
e.g.
The meeting will commence at 4 p.m. [formal]
-begin at 4
o’clock. [neutral/informal]
The
government is - continuing its struggle
against inflation. [formal]
- keeping up
its fight against inflation. [rather informal]
Many phrasal and prepositional verbs are
characteristic of informal style: discover vs. find out; encounter vs.
come across; investigate vs. look into; surrender vs. give in.
However, there may not always be a direct translation
between formal and informal English. This may happen because an informal term
has qualities not present in formal language, or because formal language often
insists on greater preciseness. The informal term job, has no formal
equivalent, moreover we have to choose a more precise and restricted term, acc.
to the context: employment, post, position, appointment, profession,
vocation, etc.
There are also some grammatical differences between
formal and informal English: for instance, the use of who and whom, and
the placing of a preposition at the beginning or at the end of a clause
(preposition stranding):
e.g. She
longed for a friend in whom she could confide. [formal]
She longed for a friend (who) she could confide
in. [informal]
In
what country was he born? [formal]
What
country was he born in? [informal]
Impersonal style
The impersonal style, i.e. when the Speaker does not
refer directly to himself or his readers / he avoids using the pronouns you,
we, etc. will be often used in formal written language. [Use of
introductory it]:
e.g. “It has
been noted with concern that the stock of books in the library has been
declining alarmingly. Students are asked to remind themselves of the rules for
the borrowing and return of books, and to bear in mind the needs of other
students. Penalties for overdue books will in the future be strictly enforced.”
3.
Polite and familiar language
In English, we tend to be more polite when we are
talking to a person whom we do not know well or to a senior person in terms of
age and social position. When we know someone well or intimately we drop the
polite forms of language. Instead of using the polite vocative [Mr. Brown], we
may use the first name [Peter], a short name [Pete] or even a nickname. Since
English does not have special familiar pronouns [French vous, German Sie]
we are forced to resort to auxiliary elements if we want to make a more
polite address:
e.g. Shut the
door, will you? [familiar]
Would you please shut the door? [polite]
I wonder if you would mind
shutting the door. [more polite]
But if we have a sentence like “Pete ‘s old woman
hit the roof when he came home with that doll from the disco,” the tone is
very familiar, we might be judged as being impolite vs. Pete’s wife and the
girl. Moreover, the sentence is an example of slang and, since slang has a
restricted use (only within a particular social group) and a rather short life,
this level of the language will not be dealt with here.
Tactful and tentative language
Politeness is connected with tact and diplomacy. Being
tactful avoids causing offence and distress to someone. Sometimes tact means
disguising or covering up the truth: gone and passed away are
used instead of mentioning death.
e.g. Peter’s
father has gone at last. vs. Peter’s father has passed away at last.
a tactful imperative: “Would you like to type this letter for me?”
A
request, a suggestion can be made more tactful by making it more tentative:
e.g. I suggest that we postpone the meeting until
tomorrow. [common core] May I suggest that we postpone the meeting until
tomorrow? [tactful]
Could I suggest that we postpone the meeting until
tomorrow? [tentative, more tactful]
- might is a more tentative
way of expressing possibility than may
e.g. Pete may have made a mistake going there.
Pete might have made a mistake going
there.
4.Literary,
elevated or rhetorical language
Some terms/structures of limited use have a “literary”
or “elevated” tone, belonging mainly to an archaic literary language, but still
used by writers and public speakers of today when they want to impress and move
the audience;
-use of the old-fashioned words forth, foe and
the elevated let-construction;
e.g. “Let the
word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch
has passed to a new generation of Americans...”
[Inaugural Speech of President Kennedy —1961]
In addition to the above-mentioned labels, we
sometimes use the ‘rhetorical’ tone, whether in speech or in writing, with an emphatic
or emotive effect.
e.g. Is no
wonder (is it any wonder) that politicians are mistrusted?
Although met in the literature of earlier periods,
literary, elevated and rhetorical forms are not particularly common in the
everyday language of today.
To conclude, if we were to establish a diagram of the
major levels of language, leaving out the more restricted variety labels —
elevated, impersonal and slang — it should contain three pairs of contrasting
levels:
written formal polite
spoken informal familiar
The features at the top of the diagram tend to go
together, and likewise do those at the bottom. But this need not be the case,
since it is possible to express oneself politely in spoken English, and it is
possible to express oneself informally in written English.
Bibliography
·
Zdrenghea,Mihai
and Greere, Anca Luminita – ‘A Practical English Grammar’, Cluj Napoca, 1999
·
Alexander, L.G. –
Longman English Grammar, 1994
·
Dowing, Angela
and Locke, Philip – ‘A University Course in English Grammar’, NY,1992
·
Sava, Dan-Serban
– ‘Elements of Functional Structures’, Sibiu, 2004
·
Internet
·
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