Craig, I've always tried to keep up with Halliday's work and would appreciate it if you could run down the title for his recent book on the grammar of speech you mentioned. Do you mean Spoken and Written Language (OUP, 1989--originally a 1986 Deakin book, I believe)? My quick search of Oxford (and Amazon) catalogues turned up nothing.

By the way, anyone interested in getting a quick grounding in Halliday's approach should check out the novice-friendly Oxford/Deakin 1989 series, which includes Spoken and Written Language. Other contributing authors include, R. Hasan, G. Kress, D. Butler, C. Painter, J. Lemke, J.R. Martin, and a couple others--a who's who of systemic-functional grammar. I'd recommend starting with Halliday & Hasan's Language, Context, and Text, which lays out the basic functional premises of the approach.

Concerning the linguistic "turf wars"--probably not an apt characterization anymore as it seems most linguists have given up the idea of deciding who's right, or who's approach is more useful--have you seen Newmeyer's recent book on formal-functional theory? I just had a quick look myself. It seems Newmeyer wants to respond to criticisms that his earlier histories just neglected functional linguistics entirely. Funny thing is, the new treatment still neglects Halliday's influential tradtion entirely. That's at least 50 years of research, an enormous body of published scholarship, and a good bit of related British and Australian educational reform to ignore. So maybe the battle's just moved underground for now--a "sub-turf war" of sorts.

Jeff

----- Original Message -----

From: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Craig Hancock

To: [log in to unmask] href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">[log in to unmask]

Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 9:00 AM

Subject: new query

Johanna,
     Thanks for your delightful and comprehensive defense of the need for freedom in linguistic inquiry. I worry about the situation we poor front line teachers find ourselves in -- the old grammar long ago obsolete, and the new grammar building complexity at an alarming rate. We're damned if we teach it and damned if we don't. It's hard to make it user friendly without finding out almost daily there's so much more work in the field to get to know.
    I'm a writing teacher by trade & training, working primarily (these past sixteen years) with Educational Opportunity Program students, charged with helping them adjust to the demands of the university as readers and writers. A high percentage are ESL. The competing schools of influence on me coming in -- one that tells me to largely ignore grammar and one that tells me to insist on rigorous prescriptive standards -- have proven totally impractical. So I have gone to school as best I can. In addition to courses aimed at bringing nontraditional freshmen up to university speed (our students have been outperforming other students, by the way, for the last few years), I have been teaching a one semester introduction to grammar (sophomore level.) Because the texts were inadequate, I have been writing my own. It is, I hope, a successful synthesis of composition theory, traditional grammar, and the linguistic grammars I have been able to draw from -- structural grammar, generative (transformational) grammar, and functional grammar in particular. It differs from traditional grammars in being knowledge based (not an attempt to directly change behavior, but to deepen understanding.) It differs from most linguistic approaches by including a chapter on writing (including the punctuation system) and reading (the grammatical analysis of text.) The goal, I guess, is to build an understanding of language and begin putting it to practical use. I have taught it twice and a colleague has graciously and heroically taught it once, and various revisions have been focused on making it more teachable, the biggest enemy being the arbitrary length of the college semester system. I will teach the newest version this spring. It's a very difficult and demanding approach, but students seem to like it. I would love to market it, though I worry about whether there's an editor out there who would have the slightest idea what I am talking about and don't know if there are potential teachers who would take the time to learn enough to teach it.
     The functional grammar I am asking about comes to me by way of M.A.K. Halliday. Quite specifically, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, second edition. (He also has a delightful short book on the grammar of speech.) I don't have it right in front of me, but I think Oxford University Press with a very recent copyright. Since I have been learning it on my own, I am probably not the best person to try a definitive description, but he describes it himself as a natural, sytemic, semantically leaning grammar. He tends to see the grammar as a system of functions rather than forms (though it is decisively a grammar.) More than any other grammar I have been exposed to, it seems deeply cognitive in its approach. Since attention is paid to message structure and exchange functions (as well as representation), it is highly rhetorical as well. I find it very useful as an interpretive grammar, and in practical application for writing. It seems highly compatible with a writer's sensibility, the feeling that form responds to the pressure of meaning (and that meaning is interactive and contextual). As a natural grammar, of course, it tries to describe the grammar that is there (rather than impose one), and as a sytemic grammar, it tries to account for all aspects of language and to see those aspects as part of an interacting system. Am I right in thinking that American linguistics tends to separate syntax from semantics and from pragmatics? Halliday seems to see and present them as integrated.
     And am I also right in thinking now that we have three separate grammars competing under the rubric of functional? I like the idea that we should feel free (and all be enriched) to develop unique approaches. Will we be able to talk to each other during the process? Could ATEG be that forum?
Craig