Applied Systemic Functional Linguistics

[Sally Olsen]

Just bringing this thread to the top for sara2 so she can look at the ideas and the websites suggested. Sara2, do you look at past posts for ideas? There is a wealth of information on this thread and others and it would make a great study.

[geordie]

Sally,
This has indeed been a great thread and I have received a tremendous amount of information from you. The information from the Burnaby School in Canada is brilliant. Their coloured descriptions of processes,participants, circumstances are outstanding. Many of my Japanese students are finding these texts very interesting and helpful.
John Curran

[vickeyee]

hi Geordie, I'm a graduate student in China. I'm studying stylistics, a branch of linguistics. We have no courses on SFL, but I did some readings on it. I found it very difficult at the beginning, but as i read on, things were getting better and i did learn from the theory. But I think the book I read was not practical enough. At least I saw no guide for practice. So I won't be recommending that one to you.
Hope you are doing better at SFL now.

[geordie]

Hi Vickeyee,
What was the book that you read but would not like to recommend?
I have read several books on SFL but most are very difficult and written by egg-heads for egg-heads. There are a couple of more practical texts though....

John Curran

[vickeyee]

hi Geordie,
The book is written by Geoff Thompson, Introducing Funcional Grammar, published by Edward Arnold. You may check if you are interested. But I dont actually think it is an INTRODUCTORY one, it's not simpler at all. Maybe another egg-head one for you.

Vickeyee

[geordie]

Hi Vickeyee,
I have the book you mentioned "Introducting Functional Grammar" by Geoff Thompson. If you think that one is difficult just wait.........
John Curran

[vickeyee]

That's much too... Books written by Halliday himself must be more impossible?

[geordie]

Hi again Vickeyee,
I am trying to keep this thread alive because the only response I have had over the past year has been from Sally Olsen and through her - the Burnaby School in Canada. I am in my last few units of a M.Ed (TESOL) in Australia by correspondence and I am concentrating on SFL in this degree and also teaching it to my beloved Oba-san in Tokyo. I think it is extremely useful for gettting a grasp of English language structure. I know it is taught in Australian schools but so far I have had no 'bites' from that direction. I have contacted JASFL in Japan but apparently it is taught only in universities here from a scholarly linguistic perspective. I have had several other responses from this forum in the past but these responses indicate no experience at a practical level.
Tell me more about yourself - if you like.
John Curran

[vickeyee]

Hi John,
I read all replies in your post and I, like you, found Sally's replies most helpful. I'm not actually studying SFL so I'm not so keen on it. I just want to get some ideas about what it is and what it can do for me. But so far I see no hope for further investigation. I think I'll quit. Well, I guess I quit long ago.
About me, I'm a student in Beijing, also a native here. Welcome to Beijing in 2008!

[Sally Olsen]

Have been away from the computer for awhile. I gave a talk to our small SFL group as in introduction to Beverly Derewianka's course guide two weeks ago and from the comments it was a success. I first of all gave the group a sample from my Commerce 299 Business Communications course. I have to mark a memo from the students to the boss (me) about a new product they want to introduce to our company. None of the students had written a memo in their high school English classes but it is a sort of argument and so the students thought they knew how to do that part. State your thesis and give support. However, the format of a memo is very important and some failed to realize they could get marks off if they didn't follow the format carefully. I have a marking criteria which I show them and take off one mark for major errors and half a mark for "minor" ones like wrong verb tenses or spelling or prepositions, etc. This student got minus 2 out of 20 for all the minor mistakes. I have had other instructors say that when they receive an assignment like this they wonder how the student got into the university or passed the special test that we have. So I asked this student why she would hand in something with so many mistakes. She said that she spent 10 hours on it and had left it for a week like I suggested and found mistakes and then thought it was perfect. She had no idea she was making so many mistakes and all her other teachers had said that her ideas were so good that little things like tense didn't matter. Her ideas were indeed good and she got the idea of the assignment and I could read it despite the errors. So we went through her assignment looking for proof that it followed the tenor, mode and field of the assignment. We decided that the tenor is a semi-formal conversation between the boss and the "employee" or student. There are special rules for this conversation though that some foreign students wouldn't understand - you don't use the name of the boss in the memo, you don't say anything that is negative to upset the boss, you don't chat with the boss as it is a legal document, and you concentrate on one idea at a time and don't bring up many ideas in the one memo. They had to understand how to quote someone and use the proper punctuation and they had to keep to the two pages assigned. There were a hundred ways to lose marks so it is amazing that 4 people out of the 325 I marked got the full 20 marks. The average was 14. The main problem is the Context of Culture because some students were rude to me, the boss, because I am old or a woman and some suggested inappropriate solutions to business problems because of their expectations from their own countries. One young woman suggested that the police intimidate the passengers of our ferries to keep them in line and of course, they can't do that in Canada. I could see the fear in the eyes of many students as they jumped into this assignment with very little help. We do have mentors - third or fourth year students - and the librarians can help up to a certain point but most students thought it was cheating to get help and so tried on their own. Many students said to me as I handed the assignments back, "I didn't think that was important." They all said that they understand what is important after the first assignment is handed back in all their classes. They certainly listened with rapt attention to my instructions for the second assignment. So tenor, field and mode certainly helped me understand the difficulties I was presenting to the students and helped me understand that I could make it easier by giving them samples to follow, letting them talk about it in groups together to get the language and for better students to emphasize the parts that are important and let them do one practice run. I also needed to show them how to get from reading press releases to putting that down in a memo in ways that make sense.

[Sally Olsen]

Just had our second meeting and we discussed Beverly's second chapter on Genre. Great discussion on where Genre is in the diagram - whether it should be in Context of Culture or Context of Situation. I need to understand the points of view better before I write about it. Two students prepared an outline for discussion that might encourage our discussion here.
1. What culture context is your text based on?
2. What cultural knowledge is required of the readers to understand it?
3. What is the specific situation of your text?
4. What purpose is the text serving?
5. What is the generic structure of your text?
6. What are the language features of your text?

These are the notions and features of Genre:
The relationship between language & culture (Martin, Rothery & Christie)
The social purposes of different types of texts (Martin)
Genres are cultural constructs
Genres are related to different spheres of social activity
Genres unfold in relatively predictable ways: stages & patterns of grammar.
Genres are not clearcut: mixed, embedded & macro genre
Genres are both predictable & flexible

We discussed pratical ideas of how to use these ideas. For example, in our Business Communication class the students told me that it helped them to know that there was something to writing English other than an essay. They had spent so many years perfecting their essays that they were thrown when they had to write a memo or business report. We looked at the Jobs of the Text and how to accomplish these with the grammar as Beverly does in her book and they said that it helped them realize the differences in texts and how to examine them to find out what the department required. They will never write an essay in all their four years but they will write various other documents such as resumes, covering letters and it seems many business reports. Discovering how to write the most effective covering letter is really important to them as is learning to write a letter that tells a client that something went wrong. Evidently Harvard has an excellent Business English course that helps with these kinds of things as well but I don't think they use SFG.

[geordie]

Sally,
These business students handing in assignments - are they ESL/EFL students? Interesting reading about Tenor and Register. My Japanese students are the most formal and polite people you could ever meet. Perhaps too quiet!
You mentioned an exchange of views with Klaus on SFL. I can not find this. Directions to it please?
Regards,
John Curran

[Sally Olsen]

Most of the students in the Commerce course are international students so I guess it is ESL for them although they have had EFL courses before and have passed our university test called the LPI (Language Proficiency I?). This is their first year at university and they are probably away from home for the first time as well and in a new country. The rest are Canadian students and some are transfer students from colleges around the area so they could be in second or third year. This is a required course though so they have to take it. It is only one hour a week for sixteen weeks and includes just two hours of Business Writing, 10 hours of Speech and 6 hours of Career Counselling. We mark four pieces of writing - a memo, a business report, a resume and covering letter. They are worth 60% of the marks and the whole course is only worth one credit. Most courses are 3 hours a week and are worth 3 credits. They want to change this course to that next year but have been saying that for a few years.
The discussion on the Job Forum is under China (Off Topic) and I think is called "If you are interested" by klaus who writes without capitals for some reason. You have to register with Dave to get into the Job Forum.

We had another meeting and this time we talked about Participants. The speaker had colour coded the participants and the processes. He also put the participants in bold because with Word you can separate out different fonts and so it gave him an easy way to make a list of all the participants in his text for textual analysis. He is studying texts written by teachers when they correct student's work. He found that his particular text was full of abstract participants that might make it difficult for the students to understand what the teacher was talking about. The theme and rheme of the sentences didn't flow either. He asked students in his research to tell him which comments they didn't understand and then examined them. It showed that teachers assume a lot from the students - there was a lot of metalanguage in the comments including for the grammar errors. He always marks on the computers and puts a period (.) and then a letter (such as p for missing prepositon) for repeated comments so he doesn't have to type them each time. He puts the period because you never start a sentence with a period and the Word function comes up when you do that with the appropriate comment for him to copy into the student's paper. This is great for missing prepositions, wrong verb tense and so on, mistakes that many students make. He broke his whole text down into clauses which helps the students understand that you need a process in each clause and I think helps them understand what things you can add to a sentence to make it more interesting or more powerful.

[geordie]

Sally.
Another topic:
Some of my Japanese students (adult-mostly female-long time attendees- charming) are happily and quite successfully classifying processes into material,mental,verbal,and relational. They are not sure why they are doing this but they cheerfully agree to my request and they seem to be getting something positive from it - delving into the meaning of the verbs. I must stress that this is a very small part of their instruction and it is very selfish on my part as I am completing a higher degree in TESOL. A couple of them, very clever and graduates of the prestigious Keio University have jumped a couple of steps ahead and on their own have started to classify the participants. (I must stress that I am not trying to teach linguistics - my class is mostly fun with lots of laughs). What worries me about starting on participants is classifying the participants in the relational processes.
In the other processes the participants are noun groups but in relational we have participants being adjectivals or adverbials as in the following:

The beds were empty. attribute (adjectival)

The bed was in a ward on the third floor. attribute (adverbial)

How can I explain this to my students? Have you been over this ground yourself?

John Curran

[Sally Olsen]

Sorry, I don't have my book with me and can't think of the answer at the moment.

I copied the discussion by klaus from the Job Forum's section and will paste it in here although it is long. It is meant to be a first lesson on Systemic Functional Grammar and covers a lot. For some reason he doesn't use capitals.

I think that I would try to make the lesson a bit more like a scientific lab. First I would have a slide show on what I did in the morning. Then I would get the students to brainstorm words that they would use to tell a story about me getting up in the morning and what I do before I come to school. I would write the words as they suggest them on the board and then ask them to classify them. I would write the words that they think go together in columns on another board or on long sheets of coloured paper - red for participants(nouns) green for process (verbs) and other colours for other parts of speech. I wouldn't tell them the names for the columns though or argue if they put it in the 'wrong' column but ask them to say why they want to put it in that column. Then I would cut up the columns into individual words and get them to put them together to make a clause and then a sentence in a sentence holder. We have sentence holders in primary classes - they are a big piece of beige material with pocket of plastic sewn on so you can insert the cards with words to make a clause or sentence. You will need capital letters for the beginning of sentences and punctuation cards as well. Then I would pass out the storyboard on paper of the story I had given the students in the slide show and get them to write up a story about my morning. They can work together in pairs or groups of four to make up my story and talk about their morning and the differences and similarities between my story and theirs. Then on the back of the page, they can make up a stick figure storyboard and write their own story of what they do in the morning. Then I would do a textual analysis on one of their stories. I would ask them for names for the columns of words and suggest Participants, Process and so on as something that is in use in many parts of the world but keep their suggestions as well if they were good. Something like that anyway for the first lesson.

Here is klaus' lesson.

I'm going to try to discuss a couple of points in as transparent a manner as I possibly can. I'll try to show how an awareness of textual genre and grammatical structure can (and I think should) be used to teach English.
>
>I'm going to try to avoid giving long winded explanations of specfic terminology but rather will hope that I can show by example what I am talking about.
>
>Point 1. When I refer to 'a text' I am referring to a 'chunk' of language which comprises a 'meaningful whole'. A 'text' might be written or spoken and it might be very long or quite short.
>
>Here are some examples of English text:
>
>1. The following spoken dialogue:
>A. Morning Bob.
>B. Morning Al.
>A. Great day...
>B. Great day for fishing...stuff this work nonsense
>(end)
>
>2. A speech by Kofi Annan to the UN
>
>3. The novel "Ulysses" by James Joyce
>
>4. a post on these forums
>
>One should be aware that texts are for the most part extremely language specific and the meanings they embody for native speakers do not always translate well into other languages directly and and often cannot really be translated at all.
>
>For the purposes of teaching, we can define a number 'pure' textual genre in English. In reality most texts we enounter can be recognised as being comprised of a mixture of two or more genre.
>
>The most obvious place for teachers and students to start is from the textual genre (textual genre=type of text) that I'll refer to as 'Routine'. Next I will give an example of a Routine and show how a grammatical analysis of this can give students practical information about English and when I say 'practical' I mean that it can and will (if tried) deliver 'outcomes' to the teacher in all four areas to indicate that 'teaching' and 'learning' has occurred.
>
> Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:00 am Post subject:
>
>
>---------------------------------
>
>
> lee, thanks at least for reading....2 things:
>
>one is that i am starting from fundamentals with no regard as to what parties here might or might not know, so i hope that those for whom there are as yet no surprises can be patient and appreciate there are others here who might not have been exposed to this kind of thing and it is important that we take things one step at a time.
>
>the other thing is that what i am going to post needs absolutely no specialist knowledge but rather just an enquiring mind, a degree of patience to try to understand what might at first seem a little odd (but will become increasingly obvious), at least a modicum of enthusiasm for the job and - no matter how big your class - at least a couple of keen students. (if you're not gettting paid bucket loads and are teaching huge classes well i think it's better to try to make a professional judgement as to who really wants to work and who doesn't and act accordingly. it might not always be obvious however who doesn't want to work so i advocate less haste rather than more in making this judgement...furthermore i in fact prefer people with absolutely no 'specialist knowledge'. inevitably the 'specialist knowledge' that some spout as proof of their expertise consists of vague memories they have of syntactical parsing undertaken when they were at school in the 50s or thereabouts)
>
>i guess i should also say that this particular approach i have developed for students from the ages of around Gao 1 (year 9 or first year of chinese senior high school) up. i have ideas about how it could be developed for younger language learners but as i don't work in that area have not had the time or the necessity to embark on such an undertaking
>
>---------------------------------
>
>
> Two things before I start. One is that I am not here to argue about the efficacy of my approach. I have a prodigious amount of evidence that what I do works and I am not interested in arguing the why's and wherefores here - it's too time consuming and it's not the point. I will show readers some of what I do and attempt to explain clearly how to do it so that interested parties can try it themselves. If nobody becomes enthused I'll just desist and no offence will have been taken.
>
>The second is that the grammar necessarily involves quite a lot of terminology most of which will probably be new to many people. We use the terminology only to distinguish concepts that are unlike, and to identify as similar concepts that are like...in much the same way as we use terminology for the expression of concepts such as shoes and goldfish. The vast majority of my 15 - 16 year old students directly learn and understand all the terminology and related concepts that i will present here over the next couple of posts in their first double period lesson .
>
>PREAMBLE
>
>1. Students should be familiarised with the following terminology, which should be written on the board:
>
>sentences
>words
>letters
>capital letters
>full stops
>
>(full stops = periods in the US perhaps)
>
>A sentence should then also be written on the board. For example:
>
>My name is Klaus.
>
>Using this example, they should be taught that a 'sentence' always begins with 'a capital letter' and ends in 'a full stop' (period). 'Words' and 'letters' can also be indicated.
>
>Pronunciation of each relevant piece of terminology should be elicited, and they should be introduced to the concept of 'syllables' and 'syllable stress' - both of these terms should also be written on the board.
>
>thus the word 'sentence' (for example) is comprised of 2 syllables, which can be written like this:
>
>sen | tence
>.
>
>....a dot can be drawn under the first to show that this syllable is stressed for the purposes of pronunciation and of identification of it in utterances
>
>(This preamble should be done for all learners whether they be 16 year old high school students with relatively little background in english or postdoc students with 20 years of background. if they are already familar with these things, then it will be over in 5 mins, if not, then you are laying crucial groundwork)
>
>Next they should be taught to identify "sentences" by drawing three vertical lines immediately before and immediately after the sentence, like this:
>
>||| My name is Klaus |||
>
>
>THE BEGINNING:
>
>Students should be given a handout on which is printed the following. Below the model text should be some blank lines upon which students will eventually be expected to write.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>HANDOUT 1.
>
>Model Text: ROUTINE
>
>On Monday morning, I get up at 6 am. Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast. After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and get dressed.
>I go to the office at 7.30. Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>They should then be introduced to the following grammatical terminology. The analysis we are going to undertake involves what I refer to in the classroom as 'Type 1 Grammar'.
>
>For brevity's sake, the use of italics will henceforth mean "this should be written on the board".
>
>TYPE 1 GRAMMAR
>
>Processes
>Participants
>Circumstances
>
>(i have to list things vertically as horizontal listing automatically becomes single spaced so it get's hard to see what's what)
>
>to be continued later - we are now maybe at most 10 minutes into the first lesson...
>
>ps. It would be a simple matter to analyse TP's snippet of news in a way that would of great practical benefit for students, but at this early stage we still have a lot of groundwork to lay...
> there are no citations - this is original work.
>
>thanks andrew. this is for you mate.
>
>i'm going to have to do it piecemeal at times...
>
>I might add that if you want to prove to yourself that this works - before you do anything give them a piece of paper and tell them to write a paragraph entitled "what i do on monday morning". do not give them any other instructions. give them ten minutes or so to do that,then collect their efforts and keep these or scans thereof so that later (eg an hour, a week, a year) you can be absolutely satisfied when you compare those with what they produce later that you have helped them to learn English. Give them the handout as per the previous relevant post, and start with the preamble as before.
>
>
>now - to continue:
>
>You now need to show what a Process, a Participant and a Circumstance are. the easiest way to do this is to use a little bit of Chinese to approximate the meanings. They will grasp the meanings very quickly and you will from then on use the appropriate terminology. As you probably don't know what these things are yourself, I will provide a short English explanation to boot (edit: in fact i didn't and i won't - i think what i have provided here is enough. this is a process of learning with your students - you'll only ever be half a step ahead of them the first time round) . I cannot give complete definitions yet and I they would be too complex and it would serve no purpose to do so. It will become obvious if you persist. You will find that some of your students will grasp this as quickly if not more quickly than you.
>
>The easiest way to show them what a Process, Participant and a Circumstance is, is to write a short sentence on the board.
>
>||| I eat apples |||
>
>and over it write
>
>Process
>
>Tell them that the Process is a bit like a '动词' (dong4 ci2) - a 'verb' (keep in mind though the term 'verb' is not very useful and we will not have much call to use it) and show them that you (and they) identify the Process by underlining it in the following way
>
>||| I eat apples |||
>
>
>Then next write to Process write
>
>{Participant}
>
>Tell them a Participant is a bit like a 东西 (dong4 xi) or a 物品 (wu4 pin3) - a thing - and show them that you identify Participants by enclosing them within parentheses. if you arent confident with Chinese, get students to look at the characters i have given you here and teach you how to say these things.
>
>||| {I}eat {apples} |||
>
>give them (and yourself) some practise here writing very simple sentence on the board and asking them to identify the Process and Participant(s).
>
>eg
>
>{I} sing.
>{She} made {a cake}
>{We} are studying {English}
>
>then you might like to up the ante slightly by writing things like
>
>
>i have been working
>i had eaten the apple
>she should have written the letter
>he can speak Chinese
>
>which are analysed as follows
>
>
>{I} have been working
>{i} had eaten {the apple}
>{she} should have written {the letter}
>{he} can speak Chinese
>
>
>i must stress that we are not interested in meanings here. just the mechanical identification of the functional units. you might - no i guarantee that you will - be surprised how quickly they get this. all will be revealed if you persist.
> once you have aquainted them (and yourself) with identification of Processes and Participants you can move on to Circumstances.
>
>To do this simply add a little to your example on the board:
>
>{I} eat{apples} in the morning
>
>
>then write
>
>Circumstance
>
>alongside Process and Participant above it
>
>These is now a Circumstance present in the 'sentence'. The Circumstance is "in the morning". Show them that Circumstances are idenitified using brackets like this:
>
>{I} eat{apples} (in the morning)
>
>Circumstances can give many different types of information about the Process. In the case the information that the Circumstance provides about the Process answers the question "when?". you can draw an arrow from the Circumstance to the Process and label it
>
>when?
>
>the following (plus the arrow and label which i cant show here and also i forgot to add previously that you should underline the word "Process", enclose in parentheses the word "Participant" and enclose in brackets the word "Circumstance" as you go) should now be displayed on the board:
>
>Process {Participant} (Circumstance)
>
>{I} eat{apples} (in the morning)
> next you should write above everything on the board (or maybe you might have written it first) the words
>
>TYPE 1 GRAMMAR
>
>so now the students should now see the following displayed on the board
>
>TYPE 1 GRAMMAR
>
>Process {Participant} (Circumstance)
>
>||| {I} eat {apples} (in the morning) |||
>
>You should tell the students that this is a new kind of grammar that they have never seen before. If you like you can tell them later there will be two more kinds of grammar - Type 2 Grammar and Type 3 Grammar. You might like to tell them that if they do what you say, their English and their understanding of English will improve a lot. so we are at the stage where you have given the Preamble and introduced three of the principal elements of Type I Grammar. We now need to take a little step to the side next because the next thing to do is the standard Textual Field analysis.
>
>In case you're not familiar with this common and important technique, when you do a Textual Field analysis you just group related concepts from the text you are going to consider. So for example for the one I gave you as Handout 1 a Textual Field analysis might be as follows
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>HANDOUT 1.
>
>Model Text: ROUTINE
>
>On Monday morning, I get up at 6 am. Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast. After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and get dressed. I go to the office at 7.30. Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Textual Field
>
>the morning
>Monday morning
>breakfast
>
>the morning
>a shower
>breakfast
>
>my office
>
>
>ask them to look at the handout while you read it aloud clearly and naturally (but not too fast of course). you can ask them if they know all the words (of course the answer they give is immaterial) and then tell them you (pl. you and them) are going to analyse the "textual field" ( 把 Textual Field 分析一下- ba Textual Field fen xi yi xia). get them familiar with the term "analyse" because if you continue with this you will later be analysing yet other things like Type 2 and 3 Grammar. (in fact this is what our native speaking brains do - but we dont notice it and it happens very fast - they just have to learn to do it the long hand way at first)
>
>as i said, at first it is really useful to use a bit of chinese to expedite matters
>
>for example:
>"Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar/Textual Field"
>我们把Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field 分析一下
>wo3 men ba Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field fen4 xi3 yi1 xia
>
>you must understand that i am in no way advocating translation as a methodology. In fact i'm not even saying that "Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar/Textual Field" translates into Chinese as "我们把Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field 分析一下". All i am saying is that if you say the English and then the Chinese i have given you here and then the English again the first couple of times, and then proceed to analyse, then they will quickly come to understand the concept of "analysis" and will come to understand what you want them to do when you say "Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar" (just the English) for example.
>
>
>
>So – to proceed with the Textual Field analysis - you can then write each group of related concepts from the Textual Field as you go like this perhaps:
>
>write on the board
>
>the morning
>
>say - ' you know what the morning is, right?' (they should i think - if not hit the dictionary (ouch))
>
>then under morning write "monday morning"
>
>the morning
>monday morning
>
>say - "you know what Monday morning is, right? what is/was this morning? what morning is it tomorrow morning"..etc that sort of thing
>
>then under that write "breakfast'
>
>the morning
>monday morning
>breakfast
>
>
>say - "in the morning, we eat breakfast" while making the eating mime...depending on their level you might elicit other production - "i eat breakfast at home - where do you eat breakfast John?" "i have eggs for breakfast...what do you have jane" etc
>
>do the same for the other groups
>
>the morning
>breakfast
>a shower
>
>say - (for example) "i have breakfast in the morning"..."i have a shower in the morning" accompanied by appropriate mime.
>
>it's really up to you how you do the TF analysis. It just takes a bit of practise. I tend just to analyse Noun Groups in the Textual Field at first for the most part and there are sound reasons for this. Anyway the Textual Field analysis gives students a chance to come to grips with any "vocabulary" (ouch..that hurt) that they havent encountered before but it's very important also because it shows them how concepts (represented as "vocab" ouch ouch) are related in our (the natives speakers') minds.
>
>i will make an admission here. the Model Text i have given you is much shorter than the one I start with. This one contains around 50 words, while my standard model contains around 150-200. so for example in my Textual Field I have things like
>
>the morning
>Monday morning
>breakfast
>a shower
>
>breakfast
>orange juice
>an egg
>toast
>
>work
>the classroom
>students
>
>work
>the office
>my computer
>
>and so on...i hope you can see what i mean here. i think that for the purposes of experiment it will be easier if you just use the Model Text I have provided.
>
>the next step will involve the analysis of the Model Text and this will involve 2 more very important points that must be raised. One before you (pl.you and the students) proceed with a Type 1 Grammar analysis of the Model Text, and one after.
>
>i would now be perhaps 25 minutes into the lesson. we're looking at a double period to get this all knocked on the head.
> so we are at the stage where you have given the Preamble and introduced three of the principal elements of Type I Grammar. We now need to take a little step to the side next because the next thing to do is the standard Textual Field analysis.
>
>In case you're not familiar with this common and important technique, when you do a Textual Field analysis you just group related concepts from the text you are going to consider. So for example for the one I gave you as Handout 1 a Textual Field analysis might be as follows
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>HANDOUT 1.
>
>Model Text: ROUTINE
>
>On Monday morning, I get up at 6 am. Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast. After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and get dressed. I go to the office at 7.30. Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Textual Field
>
>the morning
>Monday morning
>breakfast
>
>the morning
>a shower
>breakfast
>
>my office
>
>
>ask them to look at the handout while you read it aloud clearly and naturally (but not too fast of course). you can ask them if they know all the words (of course the answer they give is immaterial) and then tell them you (pl. you and them) are going to analyse the "textual field" ( 把 Textual Field 分析一下- ba Textual Field fen xi yi xia). get them familiar with the term "analyse" because if you continue with this you will later be analysing yet other things like Type 2 and 3 Grammar. (in fact this is what our native speaking brains do - but we dont notice it and it happens very fast - they just have to learn to do it the long hand way at first)
>
>as i said, at first it is really useful to use a bit of chinese to expedite matters
>
>for example:
>"Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar/Textual Field"
>我们把Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field 分析一下
>wo3 men ba Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field fen4 xi3 yi1 xia
>
>you must understand that i am in no way advocating translation as a methodology. In fact i'm not even saying that "Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar/Textual Field" translates into Chinese as "我们把Type 1 Grammar/ Textual Field 分析一下". All i am saying is that if you say the English and then the Chinese i have given you here and then the English again the first couple of times, and then proceed to analyse, then they will quickly come to understand the concept of "analysis" and will come to understand what you want them to do when you say "Let's analyse the Type 1 Grammar" (just the English) for example.
>
>
>
>So – to proceed with the Textual Field analysis - you can then write each group of related concepts from the Textual Field as you go like this perhaps:
>
>write on the board
>
>the morning
>
>say - ' you know what the morning is, right?' (they should i think - if not hit the dictionary (ouch))
>
>then under morning write "monday morning"
>
>the morning
>monday morning
>
>say - "you know what Monday morning is, right? what is/was this morning? what morning is it tomorrow morning"..etc that sort of thing
>
>then under that write "breakfast'
>
>the morning
>monday morning
>breakfast
>
>
>say - "in the morning, we eat breakfast" while making the eating mime...depending on their level you might elicit other production - "i eat breakfast at home - where do you eat breakfast John?" "i have eggs for breakfast...what do you have jane" etc
>
>do the same for the other groups
>
>the morning
>breakfast
>a shower
>
>say - (for example) "i have breakfast in the morning"..."i have a shower in the morning" accompanied by appropriate mime.
>
>it's really up to you how you do the TF analysis. It just takes a bit of practise. I tend just to analyse Noun Groups in the Textual Field at first for the most part and there are sound reasons for this. Anyway the Textual Field analysis gives students a chance to come to grips with any "vocabulary" (ouch..that hurt) that they havent encountered before but it's very important also because it shows them how concepts (represented as "vocab" ouch ouch) are related in our (the natives speakers') minds.
>
>i will make an admission here. the Model Text i have given you is much shorter than the one I start with. This one contains around 50 words, while my standard model contains around 150-200. so for example in my Textual Field I have things like
>
>the morning
>Monday morning
>breakfast
>a shower
>
>breakfast
>orange juice
>an egg
>toast
>
>work
>the classroom
>students
>
>work
>the office
>my computer
>
>and so on...i hope you can see what i mean here. i think that for the purposes of experiment it will be easier if you just use the Model Text I have provided.
>
>the next step will involve the analysis of the Model Text and this will involve 2 more very important points that must be raised. One before you (pl.you and the students) proceed with a Type 1 Grammar analysis of the Model Text, and one after.
>
>i would now be perhaps 25 minutes into the lesson. we're looking at a double period to get this all knocked on the head.
> if u want to proceed you cannot do that
>
>If you are to understand this you must put aside all preconceptions.
>
>I will be using the terminology "The Subject" later. "The Subject" is not part of Type 1 Grammar.
>
>it is absolutely critical you totally ignore preconceptions brought about by what you have learnt somewhere about what sometimes is referred to as "traditional grammar", but which is not really grammar at all.
>
>you need to rethink.
>
>the sentence
>
>I eat apples
>
>is analysed
>
>{I} eat {apples}
>
>The Process is "eat" and there are 2 Participants "I" and "apples".
>
>You should be able to see that in this sentence "I" and "apples" are - on one level (the level of what I call Type 1 Grammar) - functionally equivalent. ie they are both "things". A process is functionally different - it involves (in English) "action", "event", "existence" or "relationship".
>
>we (you and I) will be looking at other levels of grammar if you allow me to proceed. i assure you you have not grasped this yet.
>
>We do not yet need to consider any terminology other than what I have already introduced at this stage.
>
>the best way to come to grips with this is to take the plunge and go to the classroom and do exactly what i tell you to do here. the students will show you what i mean.
>
>anyway if you are interested i will continue on the proviso from you that you allow the possibility that you have never looked at language in this way before and that you might need to just slow down a bit before leaping to any conclusions.
>
>ie you haven't quite got it yet...Processes, Participants and Circumstances only. predicates and subjects should be quietly put in another drawer, and preferably one that's in another desk in another house in another province. ok? now as I have already told you, Participants at this stage can be thought of as something that can be replaced by some sort of pronoun - ie some sort of thing:
>
>1. consider the English
>
>{I} eat {apples} (in the morning)
>
>Participants are "I" and "apples". the Process is "eat" and there is a Circumstance "in the morning" which answers the question "when?" if it were to asked of the Process.
>
>
>2. now consider the Chinese.
>
>{我}(早上)把/{苹果}\吃
>
>even if you know absolutely nothing about Chinese and have never studied Chinese you can see from my analysis that the things in this sentence are “我” and “苹果“, you can see the what the Process is and how it "fits" into the sentence and you can also see the position of the Circumstance. This is critical linguistic information.
>
>
>
>3. Now consider Indonesian
>
>{Saya} makan {apel} (pagi-pagi)
>
>You can see the things (though we really need to use the term Participants and you would find out why later if you were to stick with this)
>are "saya" and "apel". you can see what and where the Process is and you can see where the Circumstance is positioned. If you knew no Indonesian previously you now have important info about the structure of that language.
>
>4. Consider Japanese
>
>(kinoo) {watashi} {wa aperu} o tabemasu
>
>my Japanese is rudimentary at best and i do not have Japanese script installed but one can still see the postions of the various Type 1 Grammar elements in my romaji rendition and please correct if it is wrong - i think kinoo might mean this morning for example...anyway thats not the point
>
>it doesnt matter at this stage whether one knows which thing is which, what matters is that one sees the relative positions of Processes, Participants and Circumstances with the sentence. Not everything in a sentence is identified in Type 1 Grammar. Just these 3 things. It just so happens that in the English example I gave, there is nothing else in the sentence except those three things. Other people might want for example not to analyse the Chinese 把 as part of the Process..in that case it would not be marked. same goes for japanese "wa" as being analysed as part of the Participant. i dont wish really to consider these minor points further here.
>
>i might mention that this basic analysis is something students learn in the first lesson. Type 2 Grammar follows almost straight after and then its off onto other things when they have this basic understanding of English structure or at least have the tools to analyse the structure and derive meaning from texts that they will encounter. The next step is to introduce one more piece of terminology.
>
>Write a sentence on the board.
>
>He reads books and he plays computer games.
>
>Now say – ‘let’s analyse this sentence. First let’s put the sentence markers in’
>
>||| He reads books and he plays computer games.|||
>
>Next say – ‘ now we will underline the Processes (动词 dong4 ci2). Where are the Processes?’
>(students will tell you where they are and you underline them accordingly)
>
>||| He reads books and he plays computer games.|||
>
>Then say ‘before we go on, we must learn one more new word’ then on the board, alongside where you have written Processes, {Participants} and (Circumstances) write the word Clause
>
>Say ‘we will mark Clauses like this’ and put two vertical lines on either side of the word Clause
>like this:
>
>|| Clause ||
>
>Then refer back to the sentence you wrote.
>
>||| He reads books and he plays computer games.|||
>
>Say ‘how many Processes in the sentence?’ Students answer “two”
>Say “what are they?’ Students answer ‘reads’ and ‘plays’.
>
>Next say ‘there are two Processes in this sentence, so this sentence has two Clauses . Delineate the clauses accordingly:
>
>||| He reads books || and he plays computer games.|||
>
>then analyse each individually
>
>||| {He} reads {books} ||
>
>|| and {he} plays {computer games.} |||
>
>
>
>Next you start working on the model text. We do this sentence by sentence – but very soon we will not be focussing our attention on ‘sentences’ per se.
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>HANDOUT 1.
>
>Model Text: ROUTINE
>
>On Monday morning, I get up at 6 am. Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast. After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and I get dressed. I go to the office at 7.30. Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>1. You should tell students that this paragraph tells them about my ‘Routine’ on Monday morning. You should tell them that ‘routine’ is what you normally do – 你(you) 经常作的 (ni3 jing1 chang2 zuo4 de)
>
>2. Next you should write the first sentence on the board
>
>On Monday morning, I get up at 6am.
>
>While you do this you should tell the students to pick up their pens and analyse the Model Text with you using that appropriate markings. This is quite a short Model Text. mine is much longer and after I have completed analysis of the first couple of sentences on the board, I do it all orally while getting them to make the appropriate markings as we go. In my experience there are always no few students who are able to complete the analysis with few errors on their own with little further explanation.
>
>3. The first stage in the analysis is to mark out the sentence boundaries like so:
>Say ‘first mark the sentence boundaries’ and do this as discussed
>
>||| On Monday morning, I get up at 6am. |||
>
>4. next say ‘next, underline the Processes’ and underline the Process as discussed:
>
>||| On Monday morning, I get up at 6am. |||
>
>5. next say ‘ identify the Participants’ and enclose the Participants in parentheses as discusses
>
>||| On Monday morning, {I} get up at 6am. |||
>
>6. next say ‘identify the Circumstances’ or ‘are there any Circumstances in this sentence?’ and enclose the first Circumstance within brackets as discussed:
>
>||| (On Monday morning), {I} get up at 6am. |||
>
>7. then say ‘what question does this answer (about the Process)’ – prompt them to say ‘when?’
>
>
>8. then – if they haven’t already told you there is another Circumstance and I seriously doubt that they won’t have by this stage - ask ‘are there any more Circumstances in the sentence’ and enclose the other Circumstance within brackets as discussed
>
>||| (On Monday morning), {I} get up (at 6am.) |||
>
>then ask ‘what question does this Circumstance answer?’ . good students will give you the answer ‘when?’ or ‘what time?’
>
>(Of course they might see the 2nd Circumstance first or they might see them both at the same time - whatever happens I'm sure you will easily find your way through this patch)
>
>9. write the next sentence on the board
>
>||| (On Monday morning), {I} get up (at 6am.) ||| Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast.
>
>10. Mark the sentence boundaries
>
>||| (On Monday morning), {I} get up (at 6am.) ||| Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast.|||
>
>
>11. Underline the Processes (this sentence has 2 Processes, which means that it has 2 Clauses):
>
>||| Then I go to the kitchen and I make breakfast. |||
>
>
>12. Say “mark the Clause boundaries” and mark the Clause boundaries as discussed:
>
>||| Then I go to the kitchen || and I make breakfast.|||
>
>
>13. Then consider each Clause separately. First analyse the first clause for the remainder of the Type 1 Grammar (that we have considered thus far anyway)
>
>A. ||| Then I go to the kitchen ||
>
>
>(i) Participants
>
>||| Then {I} go to the kitchen ||
>
>(ii) Circumstances
>
>||| Then {I} go (to the kitchen) ||
>
>and ask “what question does this Circumstance answer?’ you can prompt the answer ‘where?’ or ‘where to?’
>
>B.
>
>14. || and I make breakfast. |||
>
>(i) Participants
>
>|| and {I} make{breakfast.} |||
>
>(ii) Circumstances
>
>This clause contains no Circumstances.
>
>15. Consider the next sentence
>
>(i) Sentence Boundaries
>
>||| After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and get dressed |||
>
>(ii) Underline the Processes
>
>||| After I eat breakfast, I have a shower and get dressed |||
>
>Note: It is perfectly acceptable to analyse ‘have a shower’ as either ‘have a shower’ or ‘have {a shower}’. I prefer to analyse it all as a Process due to reasons that will become apparent later; though it is not critical and students can make up their own minds about this. If you know some Chinese you might understand why one might choose to analyse it all as a Process, and if you continue with this and later consider the implications of ‘have’ you might find further grounds for agreeing with my choice here. Up to you and the students anyway.
>
>(iii) Put in the Clause Boundaries. (There are 3 Processes, so there must be 3 Clauses)
>
>||| After I eat breakfast, || I have a shower || and get dressed |||
>
>16. Now is the time to introduce the next two important items of terminology for the lesson: Independent Clauses and Dependent Clauses.
>
>An Independent Clause is a clause that taken by itself can stand as a complete sentence.
>
>A. First consider and analyse
>
>I have a shower and I get dressed.
>
>(i) Mark Sentence Boundaries, underline Processes, mark Clause Boundaries, Particpants and Circumstances (if any):
>
>||| {I} have a shower || and {I} get dressed. |||
>
>Both of these Clauses are Independent Clauses (独立的 – du3 li4 de – independent). That is to say each of these Clauses could be written as a complete individual sentence:
>
>I have a shower . I get dressed. = ||| {I} have a shower .| || {I} get dressed. |||
>
>‘and’ only serves to conjoin these 2 Independent Clauses into a complete sentence.
>
>That is:
>I have a shower. I get dressed.
>= I have a shower and I get dressed
>= I have a shower and get dressed (‘I’ ellpited)
>
>
>B. Next consider and analyse
>
>After I have a shower, I get dressed.
>
>(i) Mark Sentence Boundaries, underline Processes, mark Clause Boundaries, Particpants and Circumstances (if any):
>
>||| After {I} have a shower, || {I} get dressed. |||
>
>
>(ii) Then consider the first clause
>
>||| After {I} have a shower,||
>
>the word ‘after’ is neither Process, Participant nor Circumstance and so is not analysed. However its presence is important because this clause is not Independent – that is to say that it can not on its own constitute a complete sound sentence in a piece of writing that is not merely a representation of dialogue.
>
>
>That is to say, for the purposes of this lesson ‘After I have a shower.’ is not an acceptable sentence and so one cannot finish it with a fullstop or period. It must be associated with at least one other Independent Clause in order to form a complete sentence.
>
>One can demonstrate this by using a Chinese analogy
>
>我洗澡以后。 Wo3 xi1 zao3 yi3 hou4. and asking them if it’s ok to put a full stop (句号 ju hao) after that. They will understand and tell you cannot do that in formal writing.
>
>Thus ||| After {I} have a shower, || is what is known as ‘a Dependent Clause’ (独立的 – dependent)
>
>(iii) now consider the second clause of the sentence.
>
>|| {I} get dressed ||
>
>Say ‘Is this clause Independent or Dependent?’
>‘是独立的还是不独立的？ Shi4 du2 li4 de hai2 shi4 bu du2 li4 de?’
>
>Many will not need prompting to give you the right answer but you might need to use the Chinese for little while so they can get used to English.
>
>
>17. Next complete the analysis sentence by sentence:
>
>A. ‘I go to the office at 7.30.’
>
>(i) mark Sentence Boundaries
>
>||| I go to the office at 7.30. |||
>
>(ii) Underline Processes
>
>||| I go to the office at 7.30. |||
>
>(iii) Mark Participants
>
>||| {I} go to the office at 7.30. |||
>
>(iv) Mark Circumstances
>
>||| {I} go (to the office) (at 7.30.) |||
>
>Then ask what question each Circumstance answers. – in this case the questions are ‘where/where to’ and ‘when/what time’ respectively.
>
>
>B. ‘Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.’
>
>(i) Mark Sentence Boundaries
>
>||| Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.|||
>
>(ii) Underline Processes
>
>||| Before I start work, I have a cup of coffee in my office.|||
>
>(iii) Mark Clause Boundaries
>
>||| Before I start work, || I have a cup of coffee in my office.|||
>
>(iv) Consider each Clause separately,
>
>|| Before I start work, ||
>
>Analyse Participants and Circumstances in that order as discussed
>
>|| Before {I} start {work} ||
>
>Then ask “is this clause Independent or Dependent?”
>
>Next:
>
>|| I have a cup of coffee in my office ||
>
>Analyse Participants and Circumstances
>
>|| {I} have {a cup of coffee} (in my office) ||
>
>You can ask ‘what question does this Circumstance answer’ – the question is of course ‘where’
>The ask ‘is this clause Independent or Dependent?’
>
>
>IMPORTANT NOTES
>1. A clause is only a clause if it contains a Process. Consider the following two Sentences and their respective Type 1 Grammar analyses:
>
>A. After I have breakfast I have a shower. - ||| After {I} eat {breakfast}, || {I} have a shower.||
>
>This sentence consists of two clauses – one Dependent and one Independent.
>
>B. After breakfast, I have a shower - ||| (After breakfast) {I} have a shower.|||
>
>This sentence consists of only one Clause that contains a Circumstance answering the question ‘when/’ or ‘after what?’.
>
>
>2. If you write a Model Text containing a Circumstance ‘to work’, for example in a sentence such as this:
>
>||| {I} go (to work) (at 9 am). |||
>
>be aware that there might be some confusion on the part of Chinese students because as their school system’s entire linguistic model of English is based on translation, they might tend to interpret ‘to work’ as a Verb. You should explain that in this case ‘work’ means ‘a place of work = 工作的地方 (gong1 zuo4 de di1 fang)
>
>3. Compare the following two clause sentence
>
>|||I go to the beach on the weekend || and I go home on the weekend |||
>
>Consider each clause individually:
>
>A ||{I} go (to the beach)(on the weekend) ||
>
>This clause contains two Circumstances answering ‘where?/where to?’ and ‘when?’ respectively.
>
>B || {I} go (home) (on the weekend) ||
>
>This Circumstances in this clause answer the same question. That is to say the word ‘home’ is rather idiosyncratic in that it does not take ‘to’ to make it a Circumstance. 'home' by itself stands as a Circumstance answering the question "where?/where to?" of the Process. There are some other examples like this but the are not all that common.
>
>
>THE GRAND FINALE TO THE FIRST LESSON:
>
>Now that you have finished analysis of the Model Text, the students are almost ready to write their own text based on the Model. Before they start you should point out something very important, and that is that all Processes are in THE PRESENT SIMPLE (一般现在时态 = yi2 ban1 xian4 zai4 shi2 tai4) – ie what you may know as the Present Simple ‘Tense’. Do not use the word “tense” here as it is not appropriate. Rather refer to this henceforth as “The Present Simple” only.
>
>Next you should refer them to their original efforts (early in the lesson you asked them to write a paragraph entitled ‘what I do on Monday morning’. These paragraphs will be littered with non-English constructions (ie. Constructions that are irrelevant and do not help to construct a meaningful English text) such as use of Modals (can, will, must etc) and perhaps even other forms – Past, Progressive, Perfect and so on. Tell them that they are not to use any of these and are to use The Simple Present (yi ban xian zai shi tai) only.
>
>
>Note: 4. I go shopping = || {I} go shopping || that is ‘go shopping’ is a Process in itself and is of The Simple Present form.
>
>ONE MORE THING
>
>Finally you could tell them (that from then on when analysing sentences, instead of saying “underline the Processes’ you will say ‘underline the Verb Groups’.
>
>This is because although all Processes are Verb Groups, the converse is not true.
>
>You can say ‘all Processes are Verb Groups, but not all Verb Groups are Processes.
>
>For example, first consider:
>
>A. I swim and he plays basketball
>
>Underline Verb Groups:
>
>|| I swim and he plays basketball ||
>
>Analyse Participants
>
>|| {I} swim || and {he} plays {basketball}||
>
>Say: ‘how many Processes in this sentence’ (answer = 2) and ‘how many Clauses are there in this sentence’ (answer = 2) . that is this sentence contains 2 Processes so it must contain 2 and only 2 clauses.
>
>||| {I} swim || and {he} plays {basketball} |||
>
>Now consider the sentence
>
>B. |||I like the shirt that you are wearing. |||
>
>Underline Verb Groups.
>
>||| I like the shirt that you are wearing |||
>
>Analyse Participants and mark Clause Boundaries
>
>||| {I} like {the shirt that you are wearing } |||
>
>That is to say, although this Clause has 2 Verb Groups, only one of them is a Process. The other Verb Group ‘are wearing’ only serves to modify ‘the shirt’. In this sentence “the shirt you are wearing" is a Participant. This is very important. Earlier I said that at these early stages a Participant can be thought of as a ‘thing’ (though we need to use Thing as terminology later), and is that element of Type 1 Grammar that could be replaced by ‘it’ for example without altering the meaning of the construction.
>
>To illustrate this – consider the following exchange:
>
>A: I like the shirt that you are wearing.
>B. I like it too.
>
>And the analysis
>
>A. || {I} like {the shirt that you are wearing} ||
>B. || {I} like {it} too.||
>
>You can see that ‘the shirt you are wearing’ and ‘it’ are functionally identical ie they are Participants. An analogous clause in Chinese involves Premodification (not Postmodification as it does in English) so it is critical that this is formally taught to students. I can suggest some simple exercises to cement this in their brains.