THE ENGLISH

GRAMMAR
What is Grammar?
 APPROACHES TO GRAMMAR

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR
• FORMAL GRAMMAR

FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
 TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR
• Traditional grammar is inherited from the
Greeks and Romans.
•  Its main goal was to teach how to write and
speak in the standard language of their
community — to tell them what was right and
wrong, where right was defined with respect
to the writing of powerful middle-class
speakers.
• Prescriptive
 Formal Grammar
• It is concerned to describe the structure of
individual sentences.
• It views language as a set of rules which allow or
disallow certain sentence structures.
• Culminating in the work of Chomsky, it aims to
discover innate neurological limitations on the
forms of possible grammars.
• Descriptive
 Functional Grammar
• It views language as a resource for making
meaning
• It attempts to describe language in actual use
and so focus on texts and their contexts.
• Concern not only with the structures but also
with how those structures construct meaning
• The organisation of context correlates with
the organisation of grammar
 The string of Language
Folk Terminology Linguistic Terminology

Meaning Semantic
Wording Lexico-grammar
Ortography/
Letters/sound
Phonology
 How do Traditional/Formal grammar differ
from Functional Grammar?

Jane has read the textbook.

Subject Verb Object

Jane has read the textbook.

Participant: Actor Process: Material Participant: Goal
Subject Finite Predicator Complement
Theme Rheme
How do Traditional/Formal grammar
differ from Functional Grammar?
MEANING / SEMANTICS

Jane has read the

textbook.
Participant Process: Material Participant:
: Actor Goal
Subject Finite Predicator Complement
Theme Rheme
 Summary
Traditional / Formal Functional
Grammar

Language A set of rules for sentence A resource for making

construction. meaning.
Something we know Something we do

Primary concern How is (should) this How are the meanings

sentence be structured? of this text realised?

Unit of analysis Sentence Whole texts

Language level of Syntax Semantics

concern