Chapter 1

What every writer should know about language

Abstract

The proposition we put to you in this chapter is that a basic knowledge of the English
language will help you become a better writer. The proposition probably raises several
questions in your mind: What counts as ‘basic’? What aspects of the language should I
know about? and, how can this knowledge help me become a better writer? In this chapter,
we introduce you to the elements of grammar, vocabulary, and spelling that you should be
familiar with. We also introduce you to functional grammar, describing what it is, how it
different from other models of grammar, and why we favor this model over its competitors.
Succeeding chapters will look at other key aspects of language that you should know about
such as language relating to discourse, figurative language, and voice. We also give you an
example of how explicit knowledge can help you make informed decisions about revising
your written work rather than relying on intuition.

In this chapter, we will tell you what you need to know about the English language to improve the clarity
and precision of your writing. We focus on those aspects of language that are relevant to the writing
process, in particular, the subsystems of grammar (technically referred to as morphosyntax) and
vocabulary (technically known as lexis) (Nunan, 2013). In addition, we will have something to say about
punctuation, which is also important, particularly in its association with grammar. If you are aiming to
enter a profession where advanced proficiency in English language and literacy are essential (which are,
or should be, most) the basics of English grammar and vocabulary we describe in this chapter are an
absolute minimum requirement. You’ll certainly need them to understand the more complex aspects of
language we deal with in subsequent chapters.

For students planning on a career as a language teacher, it’s possible to register for graduate
programs in TESOL with little or no knowledge of the basics of language. This is not the case for
programs preparing students to teach science or mathematics where prerequisites will usually include
having majored in the subject in your bachelor’s degree. The lecturers will assume students have the
requisite content knowledge and will focus on how to teach the subject. In the case of English, the
assumption is that if you can speak the language you can teach it. If there are prerequisites, they are
menial, such as having done a semester of a foreign language as an undergraduate. A semester of
German or Japanese will not equip you to write or teach academic English writing (or any other aspect
of the language, for that matter). While the audience for this book is broader than aspiring language
teachers, we know that many readers will plan on entering the profession. It’s for this reason that we
make this point.

Many years ago, in the preface to his play Pygmalion, the Irish author George Bernard Shaw
famously wrote It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other
Englishman hate or despise him. These days, ‘hated’ or ‘despised’ for the way you speak may be too
strong, but people will make judgements about you. They may not voice their opinion to your face, but
they will have formed one just the same. When you speak, certain people will make judgements about
your nationality or social class based on your dialect and accent. If you mispronounce a word, they will
make judgements about your level of education, and possibly even your intelligence.

The same holds for writing. Grammatical errors, poor vocabulary choices, as well as punctuation
and spelling mistakes will be held against you. It’s for this reason that some people are unwilling to show
others their writing. What you write and how you write reflects your voice and identity as a writer.

This chapter introduces linguistic terms that might be unfamiliar to you. If you do encounter a
term that is unfamiliar, you’ll find a glossary with explanations and examples at the back of the book.
Although we have treated grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation separately, in reality, they are not so
easily segmented. In fact, many linguists integrate the description and analysis of grammar and
vocabulary under the single label of lexicogrammar.

Grammar

Answering the question, what is grammar?, in a paragraph or two is an audacious undertaking, when
entire volumes have been devoted to the task. Here, we provide a basic definition which we’ll elaborate
on in the rest of the book. Most definitions see grammar as sets of rules for forming words, phrases and
clauses, and specifications for arranging these to form meaningful sentences (see Harmer, 1987;
Richards, Platt, & Weber, 1985). We follow a linguistic model known as functional grammar. This model
describes the systematic relationship between grammatical form and communicative function.
Fundamental to the model is the notion of choice. Debra Myhill (2011) draws an analogy between the
tools of a mechanic and the grammatical tools of the writer.

Both have to create products from the materials available, be that physical materials or
linguistic resources; both have to test things out to see how they work, both have to make
choices and decisions about the purpose of their work.

(p. 81)

In the course of the book, we show how you can use linguistic resources to make informed choices and
solve problems in creating clear and coherent text.

David’s account of what writers should know about grammar

At a recent seminar, I made the point that all teachers should have a ‘reasonably comprehensive’
knowledge of grammar regardless of the subject they teach. A member of the audience raised his hand
and asked, “What do you mean by ‘reasonably comprehensive’?” When I wanted to bone up on my
knowledge of grammar, I did an Amazon search for books on grammar. I didn’t want anything too
complicated and came across a book that had the ideal title A Short Introduction to English Grammar.
Before ordering it, I looked inside and found that it ran to over 200 pages!

In a little book on teaching grammar (which runs to only 178 pages!), I argued that at the very least,
teachers should be familiar with the word classes in English, the grammatical roles they play, and the
clause types they are used to form. In English, we have the common word classes of nouns, verbs,
adjectives and adverbs, and less common (closed classes) such as articles and prepositions. Within the
sentence, these word types have five grammatical roles: subject, verb, object, complement, and
adverbial. (Nunan, 2005)

Traditional grammar recognizes seven different clause types made up of these basic building blocks
(Table 1.1).

<COMP: Place Table 1.1 Here>

This knowledge can be helpful when it comes to making choices as you produce successive drafts of your
writing in order to achieve greater coherence and clarity. Revising and refining can be done intuitively,
of course. But we find it useful to be explicit, not only in terms of our own writing, but when giving
feedback to students on their own writing. It enables us to go beyond vague generalities such as “this
isn’t clear,” or “this is garbled,” or “I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about here.”

We advocate a functional approach to grammar which accounts for grammatical structures in terms of
the communicative acts they enable us to perform through speaking and writing. Functional grammar
demonstrates the choices available to us when we are constructing our sentences. By thinking in terms
of ‘meaningful chunks (word groups that form around a head word), we can see “how these words work
together to make meaning or how different shades of meanings could be made through author choices”
(Derewianka, 2011, p. 11). Writers can change the order of the groups depending on their purpose or
intentions. Consider, for example, the sentence ‘A golden ray of sunlight was shining through the
leaves.’ In this sentence, the writer may be drawing attention to the ‘who’ or the ‘what’ by starting the
clause with a noun group. If the author wrote, ‘Through the leaves, a golden ray of sunlight was shining’,
she/he is drawing our attention to the physical environment by starting the clause with an adverbial of
place. Drawing our attention to a sentence element (word or group) by placing it at the beginning of the
sentence is called thematization. We’ll elaborate on this process in the next chapter. In the following
table you can see how the simple sentence ‘Sunlight shone through,’ can, in Derewianka’s words, be
given greater elaboration or shades of meaning by inserting additional elements to the head word (Table
1.2).

<COMP: Place Table 1.2 Here>

Grammar offers us tools for thinking, creating, and crafting meaning in ways we want them to be
communicated. It can help us to create dramatic effect in telling a story which enables us to become
more compelling and expressive storytellers. Writers can also take greater control of their writing – they
can influence the reader to read for particular messages or details depending on their purpose and we
begin to develop a sense of the writer’s ‘voice’. Julie recalls how learning about functional grammar well
after her formal education allowed her to develop much more appreciation of texts and allowed her to
read and write more critically. Later in the chapter, we elaborate on the benefits of studying grammar.
(For a detailed discussion of functional grammar in relation to academic writing, see Caplan, 2023.)

Assessing your own knowledge of language

How detailed or sophisticated is your own knowledge of linguistic terminology? Presumably you know
the different word classes of English (nouns, verbs, prepositions, determiners etc.). Do you know the
difference between an object and a complement, or why we have a passive voice in English? We think it
would be useful for you to take an inventory, or ‘snapshot’ of what you know of the language you are
currently studying, teaching, or proposing to teach. There is a range of online instruments which are
designed to help you carry out such an inventory. One we would recommend is the Cambridge Teaching
Knowledge Test (TKT).

The TKT is a comprehensive set of self-study modules through which you can assess and improve your
knowledge of English vocabulary, grammar, language functions, and pronunciation. As it’s aimed at
aspiring language teachers, it also includes modules such as first and second language acquisition and
techniques for presenting new language items. If you have no plans to become a language teacher, you
can ignore these modules. Both print and online versions of the test are available.

Here are two sample items from the online version of the TKT. This version contains free, downloadable
practice tests. Having completed one of the tests, you can download the answer key and check their
answers. The site also contains a glossary of terms, which the teacher can consult if he/she is unsure of
any technical terms. On the site, it is also possible to purchase support materials which include
coursebooks and practice tests. These also exist in both print and digital forms.

Making Connections

Example 1: Knowledge of lexical / grammatical terms

Instructions

For questions 8–13, read the text. Match the underlined words or phrases in the text with the lexical
terms listed A – G. Mark the correct letter (A – G) on your answer sheet. There is one extra option which
you do not need to use.

Lexical (and grammatical) terms

A phrasal verb

B compound noun

C word with negative affix

D compound adjective

E word family

F verb and noun collocation

G noun with affix

Text

During his career, Sean Connery made over 70 films and became very rich. However, as a child (8) gro-
wing up in Scotland during the Great Depression in the 1930s, he was poor. He and his family were not
(9) unusual in living in a two-roomed flat with no (10) bathroom. Sean left school at thirteen 13 and did
a variety of jobs to (11) make money including being a milkman and a (12) builder. Eventually he began
acting and his role as the first James Bond made him (13) well-known all over the world.

Example 2: Knowledge of language functions

Instructions

For questions 20–25, match the underlined parts of the email with the functions listed A – G. Mark the
correct letter (A – G) on your answer sheet. There is one extra option which you do not need to use.

Functions

A expressing ability

B making an offer

C making a prediction

D expressing intention

E expressing possibility

F making a request

G expressing preference

Email

Dear Juan,

Thought I’d let you know (20) I’m planning to come to Chile next year and I’m hoping to visit you there!
(21) January is my first choice, but I might stay with Mum then, so (22) it could be that I’ll visit you in
February instead.
Anyway, (23) I’d be really grateful if you could share your knowledge. What’s the weather like in
February? How much can I see in two weeks? (24) I know how to check all this on the internet, but it
would be good to speak to someone who knows the country. By the way, (25) would you like me to
bring you anything special from Britain?
Speak soon, I hope.

Frank

(Cambridge Teaching Knowledge Test, 2020)

We like this resource from Cambridge for a number of reasons. First, it is amenable to a range of
instructional contexts, from instructor-guided classroom use to self-study. Second, the online version is
easily accessible for students regardless of where they happen to be living and/or studying. Third,
source texts, such as the ones in the samples we have provided, are either authentic or simulate
authenticity. (What Brown and Menasche (1993) refer to as ‘altered’ i.e., adapted from authentic
sources.) Finally, many of the test items make explicit the links between linguistic form and
communicative function.
Making Connections

Click on the following link to access the Cambridge TKT free online practice modules. Complete several
of the modules.

 How useful was the activity?

 How good is your knowledge of English grammatical terminology?

 What areas of grammar do you need to improve on?

https://web.archive.org/web/20220717062756/https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-english/
teaching-qualifications/tkt/prepare-for-tkt/

Here is an example of how knowledge of grammar can facilitate choice-making in achieving greater
coherence and clarity in one’s writing.

David’s example of putting grammar to work

Here is an example of how knowledge of grammar can help us go beyond intuition when redrafting our
initial writing efforts. It consists of the first draft of a paragraph from an anecdote I’d been writing up
followed by a ‘think aloud’ piece in which I talked about my concerns with the draft. Finally, I present
the second draft resulting from my critical self-evaluation.

Draft 1:

The genesis of this piece began one evening when a friend and colleague with whom I had just had
supper suggested (in fact, urged) me to write something on writing clearly. Slightly flattered, but also
puzzled, I asked her why. My friend is a lecturer at a prestigious graduate school of education.

“The final sentence doesn’t follow coherently from the preceding sentences, but I want to get that
information in. I’ll demote it from the status of a sentence in its own right to a relative clause. Having
supper is irrelevant – drop it. “The genesis of this piece…” Hmmm, don’t like this. By beginning the
subject with the noun phrase ‘the genesis’, I’m thematizing its origin, but that’s putting the cart before
the horse. I’ll re-thematize the subject giving ‘the piece’ the status it deserves. I’ll also add the
prepositional phrase ‘in a conversation’. ‘The conversation’ will be instantiated as the subject of the
second sentence. The indefinite article ‘a’ becomes a definite article because the reader knows which
conversation I’m referring to. Creating this anaphoric link also improves the coherence of the paragraph.
In the second sentence, I’ll drop the ‘slightly’ because it’s wishy-washy. ‘Be hard on yourself when it
comes to adverbs and adjectives!’ I remind myself. (Advice I give my students, but don’t always follow
myself.) Oh, I’ll also delete the possessive adjective ‘her’. It’s cohesive but redundant.”

Draft 2:

This piece had its genesis in a conversation I had one evening with a friend who is a lecturer at a
prestigious graduate school of education. The conversation had turned to the topic of academic writing,
and my friend suggested (in fact, urged) me to produce something on writing clearly. Flattered, but also
puzzled, I asked why.
Of course, it’s perfectly possible to revise drafts of your writing without possessing a detailed knowledge
of grammar. The majority of writers probably don’t possess such knowledge. They revise their text
intuitively until it ‘feels’ right. However, knowledge of grammar provides you with a tool for knowing
why the revised version feels better. It also provides you with vocabulary for talking about your text.

The status of grammar within the curriculum

For many years, in western educational contexts such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the teaching
of grammar in schools has been controversial. The traditional way of teaching grammar was dry,
decontextualized, and lacked creativity. Students spent hours parsing and analyzing sentences that had
no obvious applications beyond the classroom. (The same could be said about many subjects in the
curriculum.) As a result, the anti-grammar brigade won the battle.

In her investigation into the empirical evidence for the explicit teaching of grammar, Myhill (2016)
makes the point that the debate over whether or not grammar should be explicitly taught in schools has
been highly politicized for decades. Politicians, and policy-makers conflate grammar with accuracy and
correctness and tend “to equate mastery of grammar with standards, including moral standards” (p. 36).
She gives the example of a London newspaper (the Daily Standard) which attributed street riots across
England in 2011 to the fact that rioters couldn’t speak correctly. The notion that forcing young
protesters to use the “Queen’s English” might quell civil unrest is clearly ludicrous, but not uncommon.
Recently, a conservative Minister for Education in Australia pronounced that poor literacy in schools
could be cured with explicit instruction and a good dose of phonics (Tudge, 2021). We have no argument
with either explicit instruction or phonics. Phonics is one of a number of tools that can assist young
learners make the often painful transition from spoken to written English although it has major
limitations. (For one thing, that 26 letters in the English language have to represent almost twice that
number of sounds. For another, it will be of little assistance to the beginning reader when it comes to
words such as ‘through’ and ‘tough’.) In addition, use of the singular noun ‘literacy’ is problematic. The
terms ‘multiliteracies’ and ‘multimodalities’ are prominent in the educational literature (see
Vinogradova and & Shin, 2021). This has been prompted by globalization and technology which have
transformed the ways in which we communicate and created new, hybrid, communication modes.

Educators opposed to the explicit teaching of the subsystems of language including grammar, in
particular, argue that such a focus cripples creativity and stifles freedom of expression. This may be true,
if the focus is restricted to the decontextualized manipulation of grammatical forms isolated from the
communicative functions they exist to serve.

Myhill’s research demonstrated that the explicit teaching of grammar had a positive effect on learners’
writing when it was taught from a functionally-oriented perspective in which connections were made for
the learners between “grammatical choices and meaning-making in their own writing” (p. 42). She
concludes that “there is a clear emerging body of research signaling real benefits of explicit grammar
teaching when the teaching is grounded in meaningful language learning contexts” (p. 44). In a recent
call for putting grammar in its (rightful) place, David echoed this view:

I’m not arguing for a return to transmission teaching accompanied by the dreary,
decontextualized parsing and analysis exercises to which I was subjected as a schoolboy -
 although through such exercises, I did develop a thorough understanding of the structure
of English, along with the metalanguage to talk about it. … A detailed, contextualized
introduction to the fundamentals of language underpinned by a functional model of
grammar, can be taught through the scaffolded, inductive procedures promoted by Bruner
all those years ago.

(Nunan, 2023, p. 18)

Although the status of language in general, and grammar in particular, is beginning to change under the
influence of Myhill, Jones, Myhill, and Bailey et al. (2013), and other proponents of functionally-oriented
perspectives, the influence is scant in some educational systems and non-existent in others. In this book,
we try to show how knowledge of language in general, and grammar in particular, can assist you in your
efforts to become a better writer.

Vocabulary

Making effective vocabulary choices also has a significant impact on the clarity of your writing. In this
regard, lexical collocations are particularly important. Lexical collocations are pairs or groups of words
that naturally or commonly co-occur. The development of corpora (singular, corpus), massive,
computerized databases of words and the linguistic contexts in which they naturally occur, enable
linguists to “identify patterns, principles, regularities and associations between words that would not be
apparent from a casual inspection of language samples” (Nunan, 2013, p. 219). Corpora that
researchers, publishers, textbook writers and so on include the British National Corpus which consists of
over 100-million word samples taken from a wide range of spoken and written sources. Unlike a
dictionary, these corpora can answer questions such as What are the 100 most common words in
English? and What are the other words and phrases with which they collocate (co-occur)? Dave Willis, an
applied linguist and textbook author, was one of the first to writers to use a corpus (COBUILD) to guide
decision-making about which words to include in the course and when to include them. He points out
that a number of important words such as problem, solution, idea, and argument are often omitted from
most English language textbooks. He goes on to say:

A particularly striking example is the word way, the third commonest noun in the English
language after time and people. The word way in its commonest meaning has a complex
grammar. It is associated with patterns like:

…different ways of cooking fish.

A pushchair is a common way to take a young child shopping.

What emerges very strongly once one looks at natural language, is the way the commonest
words in the language occur with the commonest patterns. In this case the word way
occurs with of and the -ing form of the verb and also with the to infinitive.

(Willis, 19910, p. vi)

Making connections

Listen to the following webinar in which Professor Mike McCarthy talks about the use of corpora to
inform the analysis and development of academic vocabulary and answer the following questions. Go to
YouTube, and enter the following: Using corpora to inform the teaching of academic vocabulary.

https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2016/04/08/using-corpora-inform-teaching-academic-vocabulary/

 What types of analysis did he use to analyze the words in the corpus?

 What is a key word?

 Why don’t we think of single words but word chunks?

 What’s dispersion of academic language? Why is it importance?

 What does he say about the most frequent words in academic English?

 Why are nouns and noun phrases significant in academic English?

 Do a search of one of your assignments for the existence of four-word chunks. How many of
these chunks appear in your text? Which do you think you might like to include in your writing?

For second language writers, mastering lexical collocations is particularly challenging. The difficulty is
that pairings are often metaphorical, and can’t always be deduced from context. In the following
examples, the writer’s intended meaning is clear, although readers who are familiar with the
collocations may find them odd.

“She likes to drink powerful coffee” (strong coffee)

“John has been a large smoker all his life” (heavy smoker)

“I need to go out and achieve money” (make money)

While effective writers select the best lexical option from two closely competing alternatives,
the truly accomplished writer will make creative, and sometimes surprising choices that express their
own attitudes towards the subject at hand. The late author, poet and broadcaster Clive James (2007)
was a master at surprising the reader with choice of words and turns of phrase. In an essay on Auden, he
refers to the English poet as “the achingly modern Auden.” That single, inspired adverb says what it
would have taken a less accomplished writer a paragraph to articulate his attitude to Auden. Similarly, in
his critique of narrowly-focused, experimental research, the American educational researcher, Terry
Denny (1978) critiques academics who come up with “nifty solutions” to problems that teachers never
pose. Most dictionary definitions cast the adjective in a positive light: a ‘nifty’ person or an action as
skillful or effective. It is also a colloquial word and used to describe the writing of one segment of the
academy is a clever put-down on Denny’s part. The alliterative collocation with ‘shifty’ is also no
accident.
Making connections

Are the words in bold acceptable to you? Which (if any) would you change, and why?

 The small sailing boat battled through the hilly waves.

 Technology makes a pivotal role in students’ learning.

 Jane is celebrating a party for everyone on Tuesday.

 Don’t lose time.

Punctuation

Punctuation has a number of important roles in written language. One role is to tells the reader when to
take a breath, and how long the breath should be. In advising young writers to learn punctuation, Dillard
(2005) put it most eloquently – poetically, you could say.

Learn punctuation: it is your little drum set, one of the few tools you have to signal the
reader where the beat and the emphases go. (If you get it wrong, the editor will probably
throw the manuscript out.) Punctuation is not like musical notation; it doesn’t [only]
indicate the length of pauses, but instead signifies logical relations. (p. 5)

The mention of logical relations brings us to the second important role played by punctuation. (We
would have used ‘grammatical relations’ rather than ‘logical relations’, but we won’t quibble about
terminology here). In many respects, punctuation can be seen as a part of the grammatical sub-system
of language. Let us give you an example. Consider the following sentences:

1. My sister who lives in Atlanta is visiting me in Melbourne.

2. My sister, who lives in Atlanta, is visiting me in Melbourne.

The only difference between the two sentences is the addition of a couple of commas. It may seem that
an additional comma here or there is inconsequential. However, they signal an important difference in
meaning. The implication in sentence 1 is that the writer has more than one sister, and the function of
the relative clause ‘who lives in Atlanta’ is to specify or define which of the sisters she is referring to –
the one who lives in Atlanta, not the one who lives in Toronto. It provides essential additional
information and for this reason is known as a defining relative clause. In the second sentence, the
information in the ‘who’ clause is incidental, and the commas mark the fact that this is so. For this
reason, it is referred to as a non-defining relative clause. The implication is that the speaker only has one
sister.

If you think that punctuation is a dry subject, albeit a necessary but mechanical aspect of the
writing process, we urge you to read Lynne Truss on the subject. Here is the introduction to her
marvelous little book on the subject. Interestingly, in light of our discussion above, she begins the book
by recounting a personal anecdote about the misplaced apostrophe.

Either this will ring bells for you, or it won’t. A printed banner has appeared on the
concourse of a petrol station near to where I live. “Come inside,” it says, “for CD’s, VIDEO’s,
DVD’s, and Book’s.” If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes no little gasp
of horror or quickening of the pulse, you should probably put down this book at once. … For
the stickler, the sight of the plural word “Book’s” with an apostrophe in it will trigger a
ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly
accelerated.

(Truss, 2003, p. 1)

Questions from readers

Q: As a non-native speaker of English, it is really difficult to grasp collocations. Do you have any advice
on how I can learn collocations?

A: Yes, collocations, idioms, phrasal verbs and other forms of figurative language are particularly
challenging for second language learners, because they have no ‘logic’ and have to be learned
individually. Native speakers ‘pick up’ collocations as they acquire other aspects of their native language.
Several resources can help you increase your knowledge of collocations. For example, dictionaries such
as the Oxford Collocational Dictionary for Students of English is available in both print and online
versions.

Q: Am I correct in thinking that a functional approach to grammar focuses on ‘meaning’ rather than
prescriptive ‘rules’? If the meaning comes through, does it mean we don’t have to worry so much about
correcting grammar?

A: The notion that functional approaches to grammar focus on meaning rather than form is not correct.
In fact, grammar is fundamental. Functional grammarians seek to establish principled relationships
between form and meaning. In ‘traditional’ approaches to grammar, learners are taught grammatical
forms with little or no reference to meaning. For example, when the passive voice is taught, learners are
shown how to transform active voice statements (“The boy broke the window.”) into the passive voice
(“The window was broken by the boy”). They are then drilled until they are fluent in the new form. They
might be able to make statements in passive voice, but have no idea how, when and why to use it.
Functional grammars not only teach the form, but also meaning and use of a particular grammatical
item.

Summary

The main message of this chapter is that a knowledge of language can make you a better writer. The
level of detail is a matter for conjecture. We’ve set out what we believe to be the bare minimum.
Knowing terminology, particularly grammatical terminology, is a useful tool and can provide a shortcut
when it comes to discussing your writing with a teacher or other writers. Identifying instances of
grammar in action within texts and being able to see how accomplished authors are able to put
grammar to work to communicate their ideas effectively, will be important steps along your path to
doing the same. In this chapter, we cite research supporting the contention that an explicit knowledge
of grammar has a positive impact on the quality and effectiveness of writing if it is learned functionally.
In other words, if you can experiment with and see the different meaning-making, or communicative
effects that result from making different grammatical choices within and beyond the sentence, this will
help you be a better writer. This experimentation is not a technique that, once mastered, can be applied
to automatically to your writing. Like us, every time you sit down (or stand up) to writing, you will have
choices to make and problems to solve.

We’ve covered a lot of ground and introduced some difficult concepts in this chapter. For many
readers, this will be difficult to digest. To help you develop and refine your ideas on function grammar,
we have recommended six books. We don’t expect you to read all of these from cover-to-cover.
However, consulting one or two that appeal to you will help to consolidate the ideas we have
introduced here.

In the next chapter, we build on the ideas introduced in this chapter, and will explore other
linguistic tools such as thematization and cohesion. These tools will also help you improve the clarity and
coherence of your writing.

Table 1.1: Seven basic English clause types (Nunan, 2005, p. 4)

Clause type Example

Type 1: Subject + Verb Maria sang.

Type 2: Subject + Verb + Object William saw a UFO.

Type 3: Subject + Verb + Complement I became wary.

Type 4: Subject + Verb + Adverbial I’ve been in the office.

Type 5: Subject + Verb + Object + Object Malcolm bought his wife a diamond.

Type 6: Subject + Verb + Object + We think traditional grammatical analysis

Complement rather pointless.

Type 7: Subject + Verb + Object + We had to take our children home.

Adverbial

Table 1.2: From word class to word groups (Derewianka, 2011)

Word Sunlight sShone tThrough

 (Noun) (Verb) (Preposition)

Group A golden ray of sunlight wWas shining tThrough the leaves

(Noun Group) (Verb Group) (Adverbial Group)

Function Naming ‘who’ or ‘what’ Naming ‘action’ Naming ‘where’

Further rReadings

Derewianka, B. (2011). A new grammar companion for teachers. Primary English Teaching Association.

This is an accessible reference book for people interested in learning more about systemic functional
grammar, an approach that many schoolteachers use in Australia as it was written in response to the
new Australian Curriculum.

Derewianka, B. (2020). Exploring how texts work (2nd ed.). Primary English Teaching Association.

For people interested in how language and text work particularly within the curriculum, this book will be
the perfect introduction.

Humphrey, S., Love, K., & Droga, L. (2011). Working grammar: An introduction for secondary English
teachers. Pearson Education Australia.

This is a professional resource book for teachers seeking an introduction to teaching systemic functional
grammar. It provides many exercises to try for those interested in this approach to grammar.

Thornbury, S. (2001). Uncovering grammar. Macmillan Heinemann.

This book takes the view that grammar is not a ‘thing’ t to be studied, but a tool to be used. It contains a
wealth of ideas for the practicing teacher as well as providing valuable insights into ways in which
teachers can guide students to ‘discover’ grammar.

Truss, D. (2003). Eats, shoots & leaves: The zero-tolerance approach to punctuation. Profile Books.

An insightful, and very funny introduction to English pronunciation.

Webb, S., & Nation, P. (2017). How Vvocabulary is Learned. Oxford University Press.

An extremely accessible introduction to the nature of vocabulary and how it is learned by two of the
most authoritative figures in the field.

Willis, D. (1991). The lexical syllabus. Collins ELT.

A clear and accessible introduction to collocations, corpora and concordancing.

Although aimed at language teachers, it is a useful text for all those who want to know more about the
patterns of vocabulary in texts.

References

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Caplan, N. (2023). The grammar choices that matter in academic writing. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of
practical second language teaching and learning (Vol. 4, pp. 466–479). Routledge.

Denny, T. (1978). Story-telling and educational understanding. Case Study Evaluation: Past, Present and
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Derewianka, B. (2011). A new grammar companion for teachers. Primary English Teaching Association.

Dillard, A. (2005). Introduction: Notes for young writers. In L. Gutkind (Ed.), In fact: The best of creative
nonfiction. W. W. Norton & Company.

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Arnold.

Harmer, J. (1987). The practice of English language teaching. Longman.

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Company.

Jones, S., Myhill, D., & Bailey, T. (2013). Grammar for writing? An investigation into the effect of
contextualised grammar teaching on student writing. Reading and Writing, 26(8), 1241–1263.

Myhill, D. (2011). Grammar for designers: How grammar supports the development of writing. In S. Ellis
& E. McCartney (Eds.), Applied linguistics and primary school teaching (pp. 81–92). Cambridge
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Myhill, D. (2016). The effectiveness of explicit language teaching: Evidence from the research. In M.
Giovanelli & D. Clayton (Eds.), Knowing about language: Linguistics and the secondary English
classroom (pp. 36–47). Routledge.

Nunan, D. (2005). Practical English language teaching: Grammar. McGraw-Hill.

Nunan, D. (2013). What is this thing called language? (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.

Nunan, D. (2023). The changing landscape of English language teaching and learning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.),
Handbook of Ppractical Ssecond Llanguage Tteaching and Llearning (Vol. 4, pp. 3–23). Routledge.

Richards, J., Platt, J., & Weber, H. (1985). Longman dictionary of applied linguistics. Longman.

Truss, D. (2003). Eats, shoots & leaves: The zero-tolerance approach to punctuation. Fourth Estate.

Tudge, A. (2021). Roaring Bback: My priority for schools as students return to the classroom [Speech
transcript]. Ministers’ Media Centre: Ministers of the Education, Skills and Employment Portfolio.
https://ministers.dese.gov.au/tudge/roaring-back-my-priorities-schools-students-return-classrooms

Vinogradova, P., & Shin, J. K. (Eds.). (2021). Contemporary foundations for teaching English as an
additional language: Pedagogical approaches and classroom applications. Routledge.

Willis, D. (1991). The lexical syllabus. Collins ELT.