Grammatical form and meaning

CHAPTER I. FORM AND FUNCTION DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
1.1.What is form and meaning in grammar?
The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in human affairs. While some linguists may concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analyst is committed to an investigation of what that language is used for. While the formal approach has a long tradition, manifested in innumerable volumes of grammar, the functional approach is less well documented. Attempts to provide even a general set of labels for the principal functions of language have resulted in vague, and often confusing, terminology. We will adopt only two terms to describe the major functions of language and emphasise that this division is an analytic convenience. It would be unlikely that, on any occasion, a natural language utterance would be used to fulfil only one function, to the total exclusion of the other. That function which language serves in the expression of ‘content’ we will describe as transactional, and that function involved in expressing social relations and personal attitudes we will describe as interactional. Our distinction, ‘transactional / interactional’, stands in general correspondence to the functional dichotomies – ‘representative / expressive’, found in Bühler (1934), ‘referential / emotive’ (Jakobson, 1960), ‘ideational / interpersonal’ (Halliday, 1970b) and ‘descriptive / social-expressive’ (Lyons, 1977). According McCarrthy (1991), discourse analysis describes the language above the sentence: its context and the cultural influence, which affect language in use. A discourse carries much more than its form, it also carries its own particular function, which means that there is not necessarily one-to-one relationship between a given suprasegmental choice and a meaning, hence form and function might be analyzed separately in order to depict the real meaning of a discourse. According to Halliday (1970), intonation plays a crucial role in conveying meaning. If the intonation of a sentence is changed, its meaning will also be changed. Thus, the particular way the sentences are produced carry their individual meaning, and the analysis must go far beyond sentences forms in order to be possible to depict the real meaning of the spoken interaction.
In summary, on one hand form refers to the way traditional grammar deals with forms and classes of words; for instance, a verb, an adverb, a subject, an interrogative sentence, etc. On the other hand, in discourse analysis, the function of these forms and classes of words are not exclusively related to their forms or classes, but the way the sentence is produced play a significant role. For example, in "She went home." the structure is in the form of a declarative clause, however, this form can be used in order to apply another function, other than the affirmative (declarative) function, for example: “She went home?”. Therefore, the same sequence has got another value, the one of a question, even though it maintains the same structure (form) of a declarative (affirmative) clause.
Although language teachers work in real class world, not in an ideal class world, it is important to highlight their role in assisting learners to understand that form and function do not have a one-to-one correspondence and in enabling the students to use language functionally. That is, language teachers should focus attention to students’ ability to communicate, and one way of enhancing communication is by making the students aware of the existence of different signaling within clauses, which contribute for detaching function from form. Furthermore, learners can benefit from using discourse analysis to explore what language is and how it is used to achieve communicative goals in different contexts. Thus discourse analysis can help to create a learning environment that more accurately reflects how language is used and encourages learners toward their goal of proficiency in another language.
According to McCarthy (1991), discourse analysis is concerned with the description and analysis of spoken and written interaction. That is, it covers the study of cohesion and coherence of written texts and everyday oral language. Although discourse analysis deals with distinct sides: written and oral interaction, the objective of this essay is the analysis of one transaction of a casual conversation between a mother (M) and her 5-year-old son, Stephen (S), who is beginning to verbalize the relationship between telling and knowing. The conversation takes place in a car, on their way home from a party. The transaction to be analyzed was taken from Painter (1999), p. 233-4, whose extract is transcribed above.
Transactions are compound by exchanges, and exchanges are compound by moves. Furthermore, every exchange has to be initiated with a statement, a question or a command (McCarthy, 1991). The transaction which is being analyzed is initiated by the boy using active voice in order to state “I´m going to put it [whistle toy] in my pocket and I´m not going to tell Hal what it is. No.”. Besides that, it can also be noticed that the boy is allowed to make as much statements and questions as he wants. That possibly happens due to the fact that he is becoming “conscious of the different statuses of other persons as knowers” (Painter, 1999, p. 234), and his mother, who is attentive the boy’s comments and development, lets the talk flow in order to prevent breaking the flow of ideas.
The first exchanges are patterned with two moves: initiation or opening move and response or answering move. The boy takes the turn and initiates the exchange stating “I´m going to put it [whistle toy] in my pocket and I´m not going to tell Hal what it is. No” and his mother uses backchannel by saying “Oh”. The boy keeps the turn and initiates the second exchange stating “It´s a secret”, and his mother again just uses backchannel by saying “That´s right”. The mother just using backchannels in her responses may be seen as clues indicating that she is paying attention to the conversation, she does not want to break her son’s flow of ideas and hence her son is allowed to keep the turn.
Throughout the third and fourth exchanges, however, the pattern is altered to three moves: initiation, response and follow-up. In the initiation move of the third exchange, the boy yields the turn by asking “But you know what it is, don´t you?” This yielding the turn is made in order to let the mother know that she is allowed to continue the talk, and hence her response is not merely by using another backchannel, but she also comments her son’s question by saying “Yup, it´s not a secret from me, but it´s a secret from Hal.” In the follow-up move, however, besides the boy’s comments on her mother’s response, he also takes the opportunity to hold the turn and to initiate the last exchange by stating “It is for Hal but he´s got to guess what it is. However, differently from the third exchange, now the mother uses backchannel in her response (“Mm”), allowing the boy to go on with his idea. Consequently, the boy’s follow-up move (“He doesn´t know what it is.”) is a statement confirming and clarifying his previews statement.
Finally, taking into account that this transaction is from a casual conversation between ones who have a narrow relationship, it may be inferred that gestures, facial expressions, silence, among other clues, may have functioned as framing moves and turn taking indicators. Furthermore, the clear-established and well-patterned adjacency pairs (initiation/response and initiation/response/follow-up), plus grammatically structured transaction, such as the use of anaphoric elements (He doesn´t know what it is) and conjunctions (but), play an important role in favoring the text cohesion and hence its coherence.
This essay aims at analyzing a review, which was taken from the internet, of Frederich Erickson’s book “Ecology of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life”. The analysis is done under the umbrella of Motta-Roth’s (1995) genre-based study which claims that book reviews mainly aim at introducing the book, outlining it, highlighting parts of if and providing closing evaluation of it.
As a result of a close study of the review on the aforementioned book, it is concluded it lacks the fourth rhetorical move proposed by Motta-Roth (1995), which should provide a close evaluation of the book, indicating the shortcomings and recommending or disqualifying it. Besides that, it neither has the sub-function which gives information about the author of the book, nor the sub-function which cites extra text material.
Concerning what the review contains, the first statement defines the general topic of the book, which is in total accordance with Motta-Roth’s rhetorical moves. However, the other rhetorical moves sub-functions do not follow Motta-Roth’s pattern in terms of sequence and are randomly spread throughout the text, sometimes gathering different sub-functions together and sometimes placing similar sub-functions far apart, which may difficult conveying meaning due to the lack of cohesion and hence coherence, and the lack of discourse markers signaling the rhetorical moves. One example of placing similar sub-functions far apart can be seen from line 2 to line 6 (Talk [...] itself) which seems to be a generalization of the topic. However, from line 19 to line 21 (It concludes […] study of talk), also seems to be a generalization of the topic. Another example of the same case can be seen from line 7 to 11 (Drawing […] audience) and from line 21 to 25 (Talk and Social […] interaction), in which information about potential readership are placed far apart. As for gathering different sub-functions together, one example can be seen from line 16 to 18 (Written […] examples), which seems to gather focused evaluation with inserting the book in the field.
In summary, although the book review which is been analyzed contains most of the moves and sub-functions proposed by Motta-Roth (1995), it is not as clear as it could be if it were better organized, and consequently it does not let the reader know the real essence of the book, unless the reader does a close reading. In order to make the reading flow more easily and convey the authentic essence of the book, it is relevant that, besides of following any pattern of rhetorical moves in book review, book reviewers should gather similar information together and signal them with discourse markers. On the contrary they will probably scramble information and hence cause difficulty in the reading process.
The correct use of subject and object pronouns can be challenging to remember. English teachers and professors all across the globe explain the use and misuse of a pronoun, where it goes in a particular sentence, and why it is being used over a regular noun. A quick review will remind you to look for the subject and the action in the sentence, and then the pronoun will not be far behind.