Traditional Grammar vs Functional

Grammar
DR. DINA RACHMAWATI, M.PD
 Traditional grammar vs Functional Grammar

 The view of Traditional Grammar vs Functional Grammar is a

misleading and simplistic.
 We should see grammar teaching as a continuum, as in figure 1, from
Form to Function

Traditional Grammar Functional Grammar

• Structure and rules • Provide bridge to form and meaning

• What people need to do with language • It’s double layered, function and function, focus
• Orientation to communicative purpose on Grammar & Semantics
• Orientation to function
 Grammatical Terms
Adverbial, Adjunct, Sub adjunct, disjunct, and Conjunct, Circumstance
The form of verbs and the meanings that the verbs express: saying, thinking, liking, and
linking
I went to our new Sindang Sari campus las week.
 Traditional Grammar
• Based on Latin and Greek
Grammar
• Emphasises the rules of
smaller units of text; letters,
words, sentences and
paragraphs
• Teaching strategies includes
explicit grammar exercise
• Focus on written language
• Structure and rules
• What people need to do with
language
• Orientation to communicative
purpose
• Focus on sentence level
Functional Grammar
• Developed by Halliday in 1985
• Helps people understand how
language works in particular
social functions (context of
culture and context of
situation)
• Provide bridge to form and
meaning
• It’s double layered, function
and function, focus on
Grammar & Semantics
• Orientation to function
• Focus on the whole
text/discourse
LANGUAGE

Language is a resource. Man can narrow the meanings which speaker/writer means
from the entire context of culture to specific context of situation by means of extra
linguistics factors: FIELD, TENOR, MODE
Stephen: Yeah, 171 38802…Yea. Race at Alvion Park Please. Ah, two units to
win number 8. Two units to win number 11. Ah, number 6, six by six. Um,
number 3, ten units a place. Ah, quinella please, 3 and to for ten units. Um,
number 6 ten units to win. Um 5 um quineila plase 5, 6 and 11 for four units
the quinella. I think that’s the lot thank you…Twenty units. That you very
much bye.
 Text, Context, Genre
TEXT ???
A text is a piece of language in use. It refers to a complete social
interaction. It can be in spoken or written forms. (Eggins, 1994).
LANGUAGE AND CONTEXT
Context is

Genre???
Genre = Context of Culture
Register = Context of situation
 Three language functions

In any context, people use language to do three main functions:

Ideational (to tell about subject matter, FIELD)
Interpersonal (to interact with other people, TENOR)
Textual (to structure the text, MODE)
From context to clause
Context and Text
CULTURE
Genre
(Purpose)

SITUATION
who is involved?
(Tenor)
Subject Channel
matter
(Mode)
(Field) REGISTER

TEXT