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Week 5 The Functional Approache To Language

This document summarizes key concepts from different approaches to language acquisition and linguistics. It discusses: 1) The generative view that language has an underlying grammar and distinguishes competence vs performance. 2) Functional approaches like Hymes' communicative competence theory, which view language through its social and cultural functions rather than just structures. 3) Systemic functional linguistics, which analyzes language through three metafunctions - ideational, interpersonal and textual. 4) Construction grammar within cognitive linguistics, which sees language as inventory of form-meaning pairings that are learned from usage.

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20 views30 pages

Week 5 The Functional Approache To Language

This document summarizes key concepts from different approaches to language acquisition and linguistics. It discusses: 1) The generative view that language has an underlying grammar and distinguishes competence vs performance. 2) Functional approaches like Hymes' communicative competence theory, which view language through its social and cultural functions rather than just structures. 3) Systemic functional linguistics, which analyzes language through three metafunctions - ideational, interpersonal and textual. 4) Construction grammar within cognitive linguistics, which sees language as inventory of form-meaning pairings that are learned from usage.

Uploaded by

salobaidi0019
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SECOND LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION
DR. MONA SABIR
TODAY’S CLASS

• Functional approaches to language

• First: picking up where we left off, for


background
• Reaction to Anti-Behaviourist View
• Reaction to Chomsky
BACK TO THE 1960S

The Generative View of Language

• Language is a complex system, which operates


within structural constraints

• The structures, the forms, ‘grammar’

...Competence
BACK TO THE 1960S

The Generative View of Language


• Competence vs Performance
• ‘We thus make a fundamental distinction between competence
(the speaker-hearer’s knowledge of the language), and
performance, the actual use of the language in concrete
situations.’
(Chomsky 1965 Aspects of the Theory of Syntax p.4)

• Speakers develop a grammatical Competence


(=a perfect grammar!)
(utterly descriptivist and not prescriptivist)
• But they will vary in their Performance
REACTION TO
GENERATIVE VIEW OF LANGUAGE

1970s-80s
• Response from Sociolinguistics,
• Dell Hymes, William Labov
• Much broader view of Language

• Hymes (1972)
Communicative competence
HYMES (1972)

• Communicative competence = what


speakers need to know in order to be
communicatively competent in a speech
community

• The social and cultural knowledge needed to


understand and use linguistic forms:
• In appropriate context
• In line with cultural norms as they exist
FUNCTIONALIST VIEW OF LANGUAGE

• Language as a system for expressing meaning


• Primary function of language is to allow interaction
and communication
• The structure of language reflects
functional/communicative uses
• Primary units of language are
functional/communicative

Functionalist and Formalist:


Compatible or Contradictory
AN EXAMPLE

1.a. * Was exposed (by the media).


b. The crime was exposed (by the media).
c. The media exposed the crime.
AN EXAMPLE

1.a. * Was exposed (by the media).


b. The crime was exposed (by the media).
c. The media exposed the crime.

• Form: English does not allow subjectless declarative sentences


(1a). The NP in object position (1c) is expressed as an NP in
subject position (1b) with the NP in subject position from in the
active form (1c) expressed optionally as a prepositional phrase
in the passive form (1b).
• Function: English does not allow (1a) because without a subject
it doesn’t make sense. English has two ways of expressing
action so that either the agent of the action is fore-grounded
(1c) or the theme/patient of the action is fore-grounded (1b).
SAME DATA, DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE, DIFFERENT
TERMINOLOGY (AND DIFFERENT THEORY OF LANGUAGE)

1.a. * Was exposed (by the media).


b. The crime was exposed (by the media).
c. The media exposed the crime.

• Form:
• NP in subject/object position
• Constraints dictate what is/isn’t allowed by the grammar

• Function:
• Agent/Theme of action
• Meaning explains the restriction
FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT:
DIFFERENT STARTING POINTS

• The basis of Language


• Language ‘primitives’
• The building blocks of Language

• Formalists: structural categories


• e.g.: noun, verb, voicing, aspiration
• Functionalists: meaning-based units
• e.g.: agent, new v old information
FUNCTION, AS COMPARED TO FORM

• Function includes:
• (Systemic) Functionalist
• Constructivist
• Emergentist § Use
• Socio-pragmatic § Meaning/Communication
§ External
• Usage-based § Sociological

• Cognitive Linguistics
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS

• MAK Halliday
• Student of John Firth (1890-1960)
-UCL, Yorkshire(!)
UK and Australia
• From the tradition of European Structuralists (Prague

School)è Concept-Oriented Approach


• Rooted in literary studies, semiotics
(also influenced by American Structuralists)
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL
LINGUISTICS
• Developments out of de Saussure
• The sign
• Language a system of signs

n Language as structure and words ...Lexicogrammar

BUT: all a product of metafunctions (groups of semantic


systems that make meanings of a related kind)
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

Metafunctions
• Ideational metafunction
=how we make sense of reality
e.g. Transitivity

• Interpersonal metafunction
=always in relation to others
e.g. Speech acts

• Textual metafunction
=situated in larger linguistic context
e.g. Cohesive devices
SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

• General cognitive assumptions BUT


• More interest in language in society/context
• Text
• Discourse
• Less emphasis on the underlying cognitive
mechanisms
• So less directly contra the generative view
CONCEPT-ORIENTED APPROACH

• Investigation about a particular concept

a) How learners express the concept


b) How the means of expression interact
c) How the expression changes over time

• Focuses on one direction of the form and function


mapping (function-to-form mapping)

• Examples of concepts: time, reverse-order reports


CONCEPT-ORIENTED APPROACH

• Embraces a multilevel analysis, including lexical devices,


morphology, syntax, discourse and pragmatics

Learners’ expression of ‘past tense’ relies on ‘scaffolding’


(interlocutors’ turn which provides a time frame), and
‘functional load’ (every linguistic devise has a function)

Examples
I cook yesterday (high functional load on the adverb)
I cooked yesterday (lower functional load on the adverb)
CONCEPT-ORIENTED APPROACH

• Concept-Oriented approach is neither a theory, nor


a model, but a framework for analysis

• Evidence is derived from production data; namely


communicative tasks (telling of narratives, retelling
of short film excerpts, giving directions)

• Studies in this framework have typically employed


a longitudinal design (Bardovi-Harlig, 1994)

• The framework is not very common


CONCEPT-ORIENTED APPROACH

• Explanation of observed phenomena:

• Observation 4: Learners’ output follows predictable


paths

One explanation for the order of acquisition of


morphemes is functional load

• Observation 9: there are limits on the effects of


instruction on SLA

Instruction has a limited role


CONCEPT-ORIENTED APPROACH

Explicit/implicit learning:

• The framework does not address these constructs


directly

• They regard the phenomena under observation as


a product of acquisition or implicit learning
A NOTE ON EXPLICIT VS. IMPLICIT
KNOWLEDGE TESTING
• Ellis (2005) offered criteria for testing implicit
knowledge which include response according to
feel, time pressure and focus on meaning. No use of
‘metalanguage’

• Conversely, explicit knowledge testing criteria


include response according to rule, no time
pressure and focus on form.
COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

• Constructivist
• Emergentist
• Socio-pragmatic
• Usage-based
CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR

• Language = an inventory of constructions


• Construction: ‘a form-meaning pairing such that
some aspect of the form or some aspect of the
meaning is not strictly predicable from the
construction’s component parts’ (Goldberg 1995, p. 4)

example:
NOUN1 VERB NOUN2 à A acts on B, causing an effect
• cat, dog, bite
• Need the construction to know which did the biting
CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR

• The source the meaning relation between


components of the sentence is in the
construction itself

• Compare that with Generative: structural


properties determined by the verb
bite, v.: requires/’selects’ a subject and an object
CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR

• Language = an inventory of a form-


meaning pairings / constructions

• Which can be learned based on the input

• Because the patterns are regular, with


frequent exemplars
CONSTRUCTION GRAMMAR

• Child motivated to learn because of need to


communicate...
• i.e. To use language
...a Usage-based approach
CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

• Gradual building up of inventory


• From frozen phrase, formulaic language
• e.g. give me, all gone
• To partially productive item-based schemas or patterns
• e.g. I’m ----ing it.

v A schema = a template, a frame


v To schematise = to connect the different instances into a
frame
COMPATIBLE OR CONTRADICTORY?

‘Form’ (=Generative Linguistics) (formal and


syntactic)
• Hymes’ Communicative Competence
• Systemic Functional Linguistics (functional and
semantic)
• Cognitive Linguistics – Construction Grammar
• Usage-based approaches
Thank you and see you next class J

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