Working Grammar - An Introduction for Secondary English Teachers

114 Pages·0.96 MB·English

by  Love Kristina, Humphrey Sally.

Working
Grammar
An introduction for secondary English teachers
Sally Humphrey
Kristina Love
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide Louise Droga
and associated companies around the world
Contents
Pearson Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
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PO Box 460, Port Melbourne, Victoria 3207
www.pearson.com.au
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide Introduction v
and associated companies around the world
Copyright © Pearson Australia, Louise Droga and Sally Humphrey 2011 Grammar and its environment in English 1
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
A brief history of ‘grammar’ teaching 1
First published 2011 by Pearson Australia
Grammar teaching in the early twenty-first century 3
2014 2013 2012 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Principles of language underpinning this book 5
Implications of a social view of language for teaching and learning 7
Reproduction and communication for educational purposes
The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of the pages of this work, whichever is
The key genres of English: a context for exploring grammar 8
the greater, to be reproduced and/or communicated by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that that
educational institution (or the body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under Genres and stages: a focus on narrative 9
the Act. For details of the CAL licence for educational institutions contact Copyright Agency Limited (www.copyright.com.au).
Genres and stages: a focus on text response 10
Reproduction and communication for other purposes Genres and stages: a focus on exposition 12
Except as permitted under the Act (for example any fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism The genres of English: a framework 15
or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted
Genres and grammatical features 16
in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All enquiries should be made to the publisher
at the address above.
Sentences, clauses and groups: structuring language for use 18
This book is not to be treated as a blackline master; that is, any photocopying beyond fair dealing requires
The building blocks of the English language 18
prior written permission.
Building blocks: words 19
Publisher: Catriona McKenzie
Building blocks: groups and phrases 20
Project Editor: Andrea Davison
Building blocks: clauses and sentences 23
Editor: Ingrid De Baets
Designer: Nikola Kyle Connecting clauses to make sentences and paragraphs 25
Copyright & Pictures Editor: Suzy Freeman Types of sentences 26
Cover design: Nikola Kyle
Implications for English teaching 29
Illustrator/s: Bruce Rankin
Printed in Malaysia
Resources for building ideas in English: meanings 30
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Naming the processes: verbs and verb groups 30
Author: Humphrey, Sally.
Types of verbs 31
Title: Working grammar : an introduction for secondary English teachers / Sally Humphrey, Kristina Love, Louise Droga.
ISBN: 9781442539440 (pbk.) Naming the participants in the process: nouns and noun groups 41
Notes: Includes index. Concrete, specific and everyday nouns 41
Subjects: English language--Grammar--Study and teaching (Secondary)
Abstract, general and technical nouns 42
Other Authors/Contributors: Love, Kristina. Droga, Louise.
Dewey Number: 428.2 Naming the circumstances: adverbial groups 43
Implications for English teaching 47
ISBN 978 1 4425 3944 0
Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd ABN 40 004 245 943
Resources for building ideas in English: structures 48
Acknowledgements The grammatical structure of verb groups 48
The authors would like to thank Mary Macken-Horarik for her conceptual input in the early stages.
Auxiliaries 49
The publishers would like to thank Stephen Clark, Daniel Groenewald and Helen Kent for their review of the manuscript
and the following for permission to reproduce copyright material. More about tense 51
Active and passive voice 55
Allen, Christopher: pp. 11, 76.
Allen, Emily: p. 67. Aspect verbs 57
Balcomb, Jennifer: pp. 34, 50, 105, 108, 109, 114, 129, 134. Phrasal verbs 58
Balcomb, Rosemary: pp. 36, 39, 43, 79, 137, 150, 152, 153, 156, 157. Bringing verb group structures together 58
Bancks, Tristan: ‘Adaan’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, p. 40.
The grammatical structure of noun groups 60
Best, Lewis: ‘Call to Action’ from TakingITGlobal, www.tigweb.org/youth-media/panorama/article.html?ContentID=6168, pp. 45,
96, 116, 117, 120, 138. Components of noun groups 60
Brown, Kristine: pp. 12, 13. The grammatical structure of adverbial groups 66
Cavallari, Saro Lusty: ‘The Tres Malum’, pp. 16, 28, 31, 35, 44, 73, 80, 114, 126.
Adverbs 66
Clark, Margaret: ‘Monkey Man’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, p. 127.
Collins, Paul: ‘The Sudden Snow’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, pp. 34, 129. Adverbial phrases 66
Dubosarsky, Ursula: ‘Like a Long-Legged Fly’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, pp. 22, 25, 129, 132. Adverbial clauses 67
Fairfax: ‘A Young Refugee’s Plea for a Better Future’ by Nooria Wazefadost, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June 2004, pp. 74, 90. Implications for English teaching 68
Gleeson, Libby: ‘Roses’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, p. 127.
James, Belinda: ‘Review of The Plague of Quentaris’, p. 32. Resources for expressing and grading attitudes: evaluative language 69
Metzenthen, David: ‘Snapshot’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, pp. 50, 127.
Phelan, James: ‘I am Alone’ from Picture This! 2, Pearson Australia, 2009, p. 118. Evaluative vocabulary 69
Thompson, Chris: ‘Review of Swerve’, Viewpoint, issue 16, Summer 2009, pp. 43, 70, 72. Grammatical resources and evaluative vocabulary 70
Evaluative vocabulary and meaning 73
Every effort has been made to trace and acknowledge copyright. However, if any infringement has occurred, the publishers tender
their apologies and invite the copyright holders to contact them. Explicit and implicit evaluative vocabulary 77
Disclaimer/s
The selection of internet addresses (URLs) provided for this book was valid at the time of publication and was chosen as being
appropriate for use as a secondary education research tool. However, due to the dynamic nature of the internet, some addresses
may have changed, may have ceased to exist since publication, or may inadvertently link to sites with content that could be
considered offensive or inappropriate. While the authors and publisher regret any inconvenience this may cause readers, no
responsibility for any such changes or unforeseeable errors can be accepted by either the authors or the publisher.
Introduction v
Introduction
Grading: resources for intensifying attitudes and building suspense 80
Grading adverbials 80
Graded core vocabulary 80
Indirect grading resources 81
This book has been designed as a professional resource for English teachers, both
Combinations of evaluative vocabulary and grading resources 83
Implications for English teaching 84 practising and pre-service. It can also be used as a set text and framework for course
development in secondary English teacher education. Working Grammar provides an
Resources for persuading others: rhetorical language 85
introduction to or refresher on grammar, particularly the kind of grammar used to
Modality: expressing degrees of possibility and obligation 86
explore and create the texts of secondary English in the twenty-first century, and the
Using modality of possibility to temper opinions 87
kind of grammar that underpins the Australian Curriculum for English.
Additional grammatical resources for expressing modality 88
Using modality of obligation to temper recommendations 90 The reference to ‘working’ in the title signals our two-pronged approach
Citation: reporting and challenging the words and ideas of others 93 to grammar: as a set of resources that work to build meanings, and as a set of
Using citation to support or challenge positions 96 understandings that teachers can exploit in working with the spoken and written
Contrast and concession 97 texts of subject English.
Comment and viewpoint expressions 99
The book has three main purposes:
Interaction of rhetorical resources across texts 99
Implications for English teaching 100 to outline a view of grammar as a ‘tool kit’ of resources
to provide English teachers with opportunities to practise their understandings
Resources for creating well-organised ‘crafted’ texts 102
of this functionally oriented view of language
Modes of communication: spoken and written language 102
to model how a purposeful view of language can be used in classrooms.
Organising and signalling information 105
Text openers 107
How to use this book
Paragraph openers 108
Sentence openers 113
Implications for English teaching 121 We suggest that you work through the book sequentially, since each chapter builds
on insights from previous chapters.
Resources for building cohesive texts 123
Reference 123 Chapter 1 gives a brief history of grammar teaching and outlines the principles
Resources for reference 124 of language underpinning this book.
Tracking reference 128 Chapter 2 illustrates how this model of grammar does its own ‘work’ in three
Ellipsis and substitution 131 of the text types or genres commonly used in subject English.
Lexical cohesion 133
Chapter 3 provides an overview of the building blocks of language at word, group,
Text connectives 136
sentence and text level.
Implications for English teaching 140
Chapters 4 and 5 focus on those aspects of this functionally oriented grammar
Developing language, literature and literacy across secondary English 141 concerned with building the ideas of English. These chapters cover the experiential
Development in the early years of secondary English 142 function of language.
Development of experiential resources 142 Chapters 6 and 7 focus on those aspects of the grammar used to build relationships
Development of interpersonal resources 146
between reader/writer or speaker/listener and between characters within texts.
Development of textual resources 147
These chapters cover the interpersonal function of language.
Interaction of grammatical resources 148
Chapters 8 and 9 focus on those aspects of grammar concerned with helping
Development in the senior years of secondary English 149
Development of experiential resources 151 students create well-structured texts and to identify how other speakers or writers
Development of interpersonal resources 154 organise their texts. These chapters cover the textual function of language.
Development of textual resources 157 Chapter 10 explores how this grammar can be used to track development
Bringing it all together 158 in students’ texts as they progress through the years of secondary school.
Implications for English teaching 159
Answers 161 Chapters 3–10 contain exercises that can strengthen your understanding
of various aspects of the grammar covered. You can complete these on your own, many
Appendices 185 of them in the book itself, perhaps using an additional exercise book for more refl ective
References 199 responses. In a school context, there is considerable value in working through the
exercises with other teachers, either in faculty or year-level groups, while considering
further reading 200 the implications for your particular teaching situation. At tertiary level, student teachers
can work through the book independently, or lecturers may fi nd it useful as a set text.
Index 201
Answers to the exercises are provided at the back of the book.
vi Working Grammar
While the texts have been selected and exercises designed for teacher professional
development purposes, some may, with appropriate modifi cation, be adapted for use
with students. You could either adapt the structure of the exercises and use your own
relevant texts, or use the texts we have provided for modelling purposes with students
in the classroom.
The texts used in this book
All of the texts in this book have been either written or read in the secondary English
curriculum of the various schools we have worked with. We hope that these authentic
texts, and the language work around them, resonate with teachers. We have focused
largely on texts which are highly valued by teachers as these illustrate the powerful
work of grammatical resources most effectively. Because the system of grammar we are
using can also account for student development, we have selected texts used across the
years of the secondary English curriculum, and across the range of genres (narratives,
expositions and response texts), as sites for building knowledge about language. These
texts include student-constructed and published texts, both written and spoken.
We are deeply grateful to the students, teachers and published writers of these
texts for so generously making them available to us in this book. These texts are model
texts in so many ways, and we invite you as teachers to use these for your own purposes.
Other useful features of this book
Some of the model texts used throughout the book are included in appendix 1,
while others are available at Pearson Places.
Key grammatical terms in each chapter are set in bold at first occurrence and
linked to an index at the back of the book, so that you can easily find the relevant
pages when looking to revise your understanding of a key term. You may find
yourself referring back more regularly to chapters 3, 4 and 5 in particular,
since these chapters cover much of the grammatical groundwork.
References and a list of further reading resources are included at the end
of the book.
Pearson Places is the online destination that allows you to access
current educational content, download lesson material, use rich
media and connect with students, educators and professionals around
Australia. With over 30 000 resources online and constantly evolving,
Pearson Places is the only place you’ll need for your digital solutions.
www.pearsonplaces.com.au
Grammar and
its environment
in English
In this chapter, we provide an overview of the work of grammar in its secondary English
context. In so doing, we review past traditions of grammar and explain the principles of
language underpinning contemporary views.
A brief history of ‘grammar’ teaching
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, English teachers have seen a renewed interest
in the role of language in appreciating, creating and critiquing texts. In this recent
‘linguistic turn’, grammar is no longer seen as a set of prescriptive rules but rather
as a description of how patterns of language choice construct meanings in different
contexts. This contextual view of grammar links English teachers of the twenty-first
century with rhetorical traditions dating back to the ancient Greeks and Romans.
During the Roman republic and in ancient Athens, oratory was the supreme
political skill. The rhetorical structures of public spoken language were highly organised
and rigorously analysed for how they could be used to convince, to move, to inform or
to entertain communities, whether this be in politics, the temple or the marketplace.
In examining how language was organised to achieve these powerful social purposes,
the Greeks and Romans actually catalogued many of the rhetorical tools of the trade.
For example, they identifi ed the ‘rule of three’ (involving repeated patterns of words,
phrases or sentences), much loved by orators such as Cicero and extensively used by
politicians since. One memorable example is Caesar’s ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’ See
Higgins (2008) for an overview of other such rhetorical tools.
2 Working Grammar Grammar and its environment in English 3
With the invention of the printing press in the fi fteenth century, and the further Most recently, there have been renewed calls for the reintroduction of a more
codifi cation into writing of the spoken word, this interest in examining the structures sustained approach to the teaching of rhetoric in the English curriculum—see, for
and functions of oral rhetoric was extended to the written mode. Until the nineteenth example, Green (2009) and Sawyer (2009). It is clear that, as English teachers, we are now
century in English-speaking cultures (and still in some parts of the United States), poised to incorporate the best of what history has offered us into a system of grammar
rhetorical studies were a central component of the school and university curriculum. that is robust and explicit enough to do the work of the contemporary English curriculum.
Students would study models of exemplary spoken and written texts, learning to Such a grammar underpins the new Australian Curriculum for English, where students
emulate and modify these according to their own purposes. are to understand how Standard Australian English, as dynamic and evolving, works
In the nineteenth century, with the expansion of mass education, attention focused in its spoken and written forms. This grammar provides a systematic knowledge about
on the structures of written language rather than on those of the oral mode, resulting the patterns of English usage and grammar at the levels of the word, the sentence and
in a narrower focus on children’s acquisition of alphabetic and syntactic knowledge— the extended text, and about the connections between these levels (see Maryin & Rose
see Christie (1990) for a very interesting account. In breaking written language into 2007). This is a contextual view of grammar, where language functions to enable us
its various parts, attention to the overall meaning and organisation of the text was to interact with others, to express and develop ideas, and to comprehend and create
gradually lost. Because they were cheap and easy to reproduce, prescriptive grammar coherent texts. It is this view of grammar as a set of resources that underpins this book.
books proliferated by the early twentieth century (Christie 1990). These were based on The grammar introduced in the following chapters makes explicit the grammatical
the sentence structures (or syntax) of written ancient Greek and Latin, languages whose structures and patterns of key text types in secondary English. An explicit focus on the
structures differed from English in some fundamental ways. For example, the infi nitive grammar of these text types offers enormous support to students who are confused
form of the verb ‘to go’ is one word in Latin, leading to the rule that infi nitives should about the basic structures and language features of English texts. While some students
not be split in English, and thus rendering Captain Kirk’s rhetorically powerful line ‘to may have been implicitly ‘taught’ versions of these structures and language features
boldly go’ ungrammatical! in middle-class households, those students who have not had access to this sort of
By the mid-twentieth century the separation of grammar and rhetoric was cultural capital do not learn by osmosis the conventions which are valued both in the
complete. As a result, grammar became a set of drilled rules about sentence structure wider culture and in the examination system. The acquisition of these conventions
that did not contribute meaningfully to students’ own writing development. In the cannot be left to chance and must be explicitly taught at school, if they are to be learnt
1970s and 1980s, three key movements arose which represented a powerful backlash at all by certain groups of our students.
against this decontextualised and impoverished model of ‘traditional’ school grammar:
‘whole language’ (Goodman 1967), ‘personal growth’ models of English (Dixon 1975) and
‘process writing’ (Graves 1981). These all put student learning processes and growth at Grammar teaching in the
the centre of their pedagogy, but offered no model of language to guide the teacher. As
a result, many teachers were trained during this era with no explicit knowledge about early twenty-fi rst century
language (KAL), leaving them without suffi cient resources for diagnosing or supporting
their students’ language development. This was particularly problematic for teachers Many English teachers we have spoken to are excited by the new Australian Curriculum
working with students from communities with fewer of the ‘valued’ literacy resources and its invitation for them to revitalise their own knowledge about language as they
to draw on, and those learning English as an additional language. contribute to a study of English as ‘dynamic and evolving’. Their students will have the
By the 1980s, a group of educational linguists (Christie 1990; Derewianka 1991; opportunity to develop an explicit understanding and appreciation of the nature of the
Rothery 1994) began to explore what kind of KAL would allow teachers to intervene English language and how it works to create various kinds of meaning. While supporting
more supportively in their students’ literacy development. The earlier work of these them in developing emerging textual practices, this will also reconnect students with
educational linguists revealed that teachers’ knowledge about language does contribute older traditions of rhetoric as they learn to use language to inform, persuade, entertain
to students’ literacy development. The model of grammar proposed was largely and argue. This rhetorically oriented grammar also provides a means for students to
developed by linguists Michael Halliday (1994) and James Martin (1993). There was a appreciate the capacity of Standard Australian English to evoke feelings, and to organise
reconnection with rhetoric, in that the model was comprehensive and fl exible enough and convey information and ideas. Teachers are particularly excited by the opportunities
to explore the characteristics of spoken and written texts and how these achieve to explore what kind of language resources modern orators use to rouse public
particular purposes in particular social contexts. This more rhetorically oriented view sentiment. They are looking for a metalanguage that helps them identify the rhetorical
of grammar has since informed much of current educational practice across Australia. tools used, for example, by Kevin Rudd in his Apology to the Stolen Generations. One
It is a grammar which views language as a set of resources for enabling students to such tool is grammatical parallelism, most evident in Rudd’s choice of adverbial phrase
construct and read the varied texts of their contemporary world, while connecting them (underlined) at the beginning of each sentence in the extract below.
to the classic texts of the past. It is a grammar which allows students to appreciate and
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for
critique the powerful texts of their time, including those which galvanised social change
their families left behind, we say sorry.
by using rhetorical strategies that reconnected with Roman and Greek traditions of
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking
oratory. Two such texts are former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd’s Apology to
up of families and communities, we say sorry.
Australia’s Indigenous Peoples of 13 February 2008 (commonly referred to as ‘Apology
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and
to the Stolen Generations’ or more simply as ‘Apology speech’) and US President Barack
a proud culture, we say sorry.
Obama’s election night victory speech of 4 November 2008.
4 Working Grammar Grammar and its environment in English 5
English teachers also want a grammar that allows them to go beyond identifying of literature. We introduce three key text types of English as important contexts for
discrete structural features to one which allows them to explore how language choices further exploring grammar, outlining the typical structure of some key story genres,
combine in texts such as Rudd’s to work their rhetorical magic. For example, along with argument genres and text response genres. We hope that the texts and exercises we
the repeated choices of complex adverbial phrases at the beginning of each sentence in offer for your professional development will provide models that you can adapt for your
the excerpt above, Rudd has used the rule of three and repetition (we say sorry), which classroom use.
amplifi es or ‘turns up the volume’ of the apology. The choice of the personal, inclusive
pronoun ‘we’ is also effective in sharing the responsibility of the apology with parliament
and ‘more broadly’ with the people of Australia. We will explore these powerful rhetorical Principles of language underpinning this book
strategies later in the book.
Many English teachers are daunted by the signifi cant challenges involved in The view of language that underpins this book is concerned with how we use language
learning a more extended system of grammar than they have had access to in the past. to make meaning. This is a social view of language, based largely on contributions from
For older teachers, the word ‘grammar’ conjures up memories of stultifying lessons in systemic functional linguistics (Halliday 1994; Halliday & Hasan 1976; Martin 1993).
parsing and analysis, red pen on a composition and their own keen awareness of the These principles about language, text and context, as outlined below, allow teachers to
gap between the ideal and the real in actual communication. For younger teachers, it fully engage with the language strand of the Australian Curriculum for English.
suggests mysterious, often unfamiliar knowledge about rules of agreement or structure
which they reach for in moments of student diffi culty with a sentence. Language is infl uenced by the context of use
Many English teachers have undertaken their own teacher training or high
school education in an era when there was a deliberate avoidance of explicit teaching The texts we use and the meanings we make with language are influenced by a number
of grammar. Some of these teachers may even recall negative experiences in learning of factors outside language—those associated with the context in which language
traditional grammars at school, in particular the frustration of learning about parts is being used. Features of the context which may influence and shape our language
of speech and sentence-based grammatical rules which didn’t relate to the literary or use include:
everyday texts they studied or taught with. As a result, they may have avoided teaching
the cultural context—This refers to the broad cultural practices associated with
and learning with any form of grammar. Some English teachers may continue to use
different countries or ethnic groups but also to the institutionalised practices
the simplifi ed forms of these traditional grammars which have featured in various
within groups such as schools, sporting associations or internet chat groups.
textbooks, fi nding that they provide some insights into sentence structure, however
Western and Asian ways of telling a story, for example, may vary, but so too might
fragmented and shallow. Yet another group may argue that while grammar has always
stories told in a blog, compared with those told in a public book reading.
been part of ‘core business’ in English, it should be taught ‘at the point of need’ rather
the sociocultural context—Language also varies according to the different
than systematically built into their curriculum planning.
orientations or backgrounds of groups within cultures. Sociologists and linguists
have noted, for example, that factors such as socioeconomic status, gender, age
Exercise
1.1 and ethnic background have a great influence on language choices. A letter to the
editor by a teenage boy in the western suburbs of Melbourne about the need for
At this stage, you might like to take a moment to reflect on, or discuss with a colleague, your own more skate parks may use very different language choices to a letter on the same
experiences of learning and teaching grammar. Which of the groups mentioned earlier would you topic written by a middle-aged, middle-class woman.
locate yourself in? the specific context—Aspects of the specific or local context, such as the activity
we are engaged in, the nature of the interaction and the channel of communication,
Whatever your prior experiences with learning and teaching grammar, we have
also have a great influence on language. A person might review a film using one
designed this book so that it can meet a range of various teacher needs. In the remainder
set of language choices when speaking with a friend, and a very different set of
of this chapter, we outline the key principles of an expanded system of language, as this
language choices when writing a review for the school magazine.
reconnects both retrospectively with older traditions of rhetoric and prospectively as
it underpins the Australian Curriculum for English. We introduce this grammar as a
Language is functional
system of choices which arise out of four key contextual factors:
our purpose for using language (the genre or text type) Language enables us to get things done. We use spoken and written texts to achieve
what we are talking/writing about (subject matter or field) different goals or social purposes. For example, we use stories to entertain, arguments
with whom we are interacting (audience or tenor) to persuade and text responses to analyse a literary artefact. Texts that share the same
the role played by language (mode and medium). social purpose and have many of the same features are called text types or genres.
This notion of function relates not only to whole texts, but to language itself. The
We illustrate how working with this view of grammar can help English teachers language we use in different text types serves a number of functions simultaneously.
support their students not only to understand the structure of English as a language, Halliday (1994) describes these functions as:
but to develop their students’ literacy (in terms of comprehending, evaluating and
the experiential function—the way we use language to represent our experiences
creating written and multimodal texts) and engage in a more informed appreciation
of the world
6 Working Grammar Grammar and its environment in English 7
the interpersonal function—the way we use language to interact with others Implications of a social view of language
the textual function—the way we use language to create well-organised and
cohesive texts, both written and spoken. for teaching and learning
The words we choose and the way we organise them within texts refl ect these
The social view of language described earlier has three important implications for
functions and help the text achieve its purpose.
teaching and learning about language in the secondary English curriculum:
Language is a system of register choices 1 The development of students’ spoken and written language does not take place
naturally, but is supported by key experts in their educational communities.
The language system is a network of grammatical and lexical (word) choices which can Teachers who are aware of how language is structured to achieve distinctive
be seen as a tool kit with which we can make particular meanings in particular contexts. purposes can better support students in appreciating and creating the
We draw on different areas of the language system (or different tools) depending on increasingly complex range of texts they encounter in secondary English.
whether we are representing:
2 Access to a metalanguage—a language for talking about language—allows
the field—what’s going on, who’s involved and the surrounding circumstances. teachers to be explicit about how language functions when modelling or jointly
This set of choices is related to the experiential function. constructing texts with students. This metalanguage is a particularly important
the tenor—the roles, relationships and feelings involved in interacting with tool kit for describing and critiquing the language resources used by speakers
others. This set of choices is related to the interpersonal function. and writers to construct different versions of reality in the texts they produce.
the mode—the different modes or channels of communication, whether these
3 The model of language and context applies to multimodal texts as well as those
be written, spoken or multimodal. This set of choices is related to the textual
based on words alone. We live in exciting multimodal times, where technology
function.
offers us the opportunity to represent meanings not just through spoken and
written words, but also through intriguing combinations of words, images,
These three factors of fi eld, tenor and mode combine to shape the register of a
animations, hyperlinks and sound, to name but a few modes. The written or
spoken or written text in its specifi c context. The term ‘register’ has long been used
spoken word is central to meaning-making in all the modes studied in English,
by English teachers to refer to different ways of speaking or writing, determined by
and this is the system we have focused on in this book. However, the model
such things as class, gender or age. For example, in the fi lm Educating Rita, Rita initially
outlined above provides essential tools which can also be applied to multimodal
uses only a colloquial and everyday register of English but develops in addition a more
texts—see, for example, Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006).
specialised and formal register through the interactions, topics and modes of her
study at university. Throughout this book, we use the concept of register to refer to
the combination of grammatical resources which create the fi eld (the what), the tenor
(the who) and the mode (the how) of a text as it achieves its particular purpose (or
genre). The relationship between these aspects of context (fi eld, tenor and mode) and
the grammatical systems drawn on (the experiential, the interpersonal and the textual)
is represented in fi gure 1.1.
Aspect of context Language function
Field Experiential
Tenor Interpersonal
Mode Textual
Figure 1.1: Relationship between aspects of context and language functions
The key genres of English: a context for exploring grammar 9
Our view of genre then is as a particular organisational and grammatical
structure that achieves distinctive social purposes in various forms of spoken, written
and multimodal texts. Genres are shaped by the specifi c contextual factors of fi eld,
tenor and mode, as discussed in chapter 1. The genres that students are required to
interpret and produce in subject English provide a useful starting point for looking at
patterns of grammar and meaning.
The key genres of
Genres and stages: a focus on narrative
Narratives, one of the story genres, explore human experience in order to entertain,
English: a context
move and instruct their readers, listeners or viewers. They create a possible world in
which unexpected things happen to individuals and where readers become involved in
the conflicts or problems these characters confront and resolve. Narratives can teach
through vicarious participation in the experiences of these possible worlds as characters
for exploring
attempt to resolve problems and reach a desired state, whether that be peace, triumph,
wisdom or happiness. In order to achieve these purposes, narratives in western English-
speaking cultures tend to have three essential stages:
grammar orientation, where some background to the characters and setting is provided
complication, where some problem is identified
resolution, where the problem is resolved.
Text 2.1 is a short narrative, written by Jack, a Year 8 student, with these three
stages labelled.
Text 2.1: Jack’s narrative, ‘Never again’
Orientation Dad, Grandad, my friend Sam and I had planned the trip up North for months and now it was
a reality. We’d packed the combivan with everything we were likely to need—surfboards, fi shing
and camping gear, loads of goodies to eat and, to Mum’s amazement, even sunscreen!
Complication The trip was uneventful till we hit the border. Sure, the screeching of the fanbelt outperformed
Having briefly situated a contemporary functional view of grammar within a historical Grandpa’s snoring, but that was just background noise to a kid like me who grew up in a
context, we will now illustrate how this model of grammar does its own work in three household with seven others. After only fi ve hours on the road, Sam, who was an only child, went
of the text types commonly used in secondary English. In doing so, we hope to model bright red in the face and started shaking violently. I thought he was pulling my leg until he let out
how English teachers can make grammar ‘work’ to develop their students’ literacy (in an almighty scream. ‘Mr Kirk, stop, right here!’ That’s when we realised that Sam was a chronic
terms of comprehending, evaluating and creating written and multimodal texts) and claustrophobic and couldn’t bear high-pitched sounds. His mum hadn’t warned us that travelling
to engage them in a more informed appreciation of literature. We introduce three key in a noisy, cramped, overcrowded and badly tuned Volkswagen was likely to bring on an episode!
genres of English—narrative, text response and exposition—as important contexts for
Resolution We arranged for Sam to take the train home—he said he’d prefer that to travelling one
further exploring grammar.
more metre in the confi ned space of the noisy Volksie. As I helped him with his backpack, he
For a number of years now, the concept of genre has been an important one for
English teachers as they help their students to structure well-formed narratives, text whimpered, ‘Sorry I didn’t tell you. I thought I had this licked.’ He ran towards the station in a
responses and expositions. The word ‘genre’ conjures up slightly different things for cloud of red dust, at a speed I didn’t think him capable of. We’re still friends, but we stick to quiet
different people, ranging from a description of the mode in which a text is designed (e.g. outdoor walks these days!
an email, a speech, a newspaper report) to a classifi cation of a particular type of text
(e.g. fi lm noir, detective fi ction). In this book, the word ‘genre’ is used synonymously with
The components of well-formed narratives do not always occur in the order
‘text type’; that is, as a relatively predictable form of spoken, written or multimodal
above, and innovative storytellers often play with the staging of the story and with
text that has evolved in a particular way to do particular jobs. By the time they reach
reader expectations in creative ways. Narratives do not need to start with an orientation,
high school, students are required to identify the features and purposes of a range of
for example. We often read stories which open with the complication in order to engage
different text types and be familiar with the typical stages and language features of text
the reader immediately in the action, as indicated in fi gure 2.1 on the next page.
types, such as narrative, expositions, debates and reviews of literary works.