I, too, am interested in the 'text grammar' idea, but when I talk about
the grammar/text relation, I am talking about something a little more
'local': not the overall pattern of a text, but the determination of a
sentence's grammar by its position in a particular text. What winds up
in subject position and why? Why are appositives inserted with subjects?
When do certain types of sentences appear (passives; pseudo-clefts) and
why? How do pronoun-antecedent connections get established? I continue
to suspect that the best way to understand subject/predicate as sentence
constituents is to appreciate how they are used in distributing
information -- given vs. new information; topical vs. detail
information, etc. -- and in maintaining coherence or topic thread.
Things like SFG's 'theme/rheme' distinction (poor terminology, in my
view, but an interesting structural observation).

Looking at the overall structure of a text is useful, for sure -- I
would never suggest that it's not a worthwhile topic in writing classes.
But I think the more 'local' matters I discuss in the paragraph above
tie study of sentence grammar directly and immediately to context, and
therefore to writing.

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Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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