9.2 A Functional Linguistics Approach to Writing A...
This chapter describes an alternative approach to writing assessment that overcomes the limitations of currently popular assessment tools. The approach, called the functional linguistics approach (FLA), was first introduced in Chapter 3 and developed in subsequent chapters. It offers a set of analytical tools that enables teachers to focus systematically on the schematic and grammatical choices students make in their writing and evaluate whether these choices are appropriate for the particular task at hand and effective for presenting information, creating discursive flow, and infusing points of view. The approach recognizes that language is the primary medium through which student writing is communicated and assessed in the academia. It foregrounds the important role of teachers in understanding the discursive features of different types of writing and in using that knowledge to inform writing evaluation and instruction.
One way of instantiating FLA is functional grammar analysis. Functional grammar analysis offers a metalanguage that makes visible the varied ways language constructs texts in different disciplines, genres and registers. It enables an evaluation of texts and their effectiveness in meaning making through a functional focus on language choices below, above, around, and beyond the clause. From an SFL perspective, every use of language, whether spoken or written, involves saying something about the world (the experiential meaning), connecting what is said by some kind of logic (the logical meaning), enacting a social relationship of some kind (the interpersonal meaning), and presenting a message in a coherent way (the textual meaning). The experiential meaning is realized through the grammatical system of transitivity (see Chapter 2). The logical meaning is typically realized through the systems of clause complexing (see Chapter 2). The textual meaning is realized through the Theme/Rheme system of language, as well as patterns of cohesion (see Chapter 2). The interpersonal meaning is realized through Mood, modality, and other appraisal resources of language (see Chapter 2).(https://www.daowen.com)
Every text — and each clause in the text — simultaneously encodes these four strands of meaning, and it is the grammatical systems of language that enable the text (and clause) to mean what it means. Given the systematic relationship between meaning and grammar, a functional analysis of the language patterns in a text can reveal how meaning is constructed in the text. For example, if teachers want to find out about the content of a text, which concerns the experiential meaning, they can analyze the transitivity patterns in the text. If teachers are interested in evaluating the way a text is organized, which involves both textual and logical meanings, they can examine the Theme/Rheme structure and cohesion patterns, as well as clause types and clause combining strategies, in the text. If teachers are concerned with the style of writing or the author's perspective, which is part of the interpersonal meaning, they can analyze Mood, modality, word choices, and other appraisal resources. Table 3-1 (see Chapter 3) shows the kinds of functional grammar analysis strategies that are appropriate for evaluating the three key areas of writing — content, organization, and style/perspective — that are often the focus of classroom writing assessment and instruction. The remainder of this chapter describes how functional grammar analysis is used in evaluating two prominent types of writing that students are expected to master in school —report (a type of informational or factual writing) and reading response (a type of personal writing). The student writing samples presented in the rest of this chapter are reproduced as they were originally composed, without corrections to spelling, punctuation, or other grammatical conventions.