An ESP teacher's guide to functional analyses

The ESP Journal, Vol. 2, pp. 101 112, 1983 0272-2380/83/010101-11503.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 1983 The American University

An ESP T e a c h e r ' s G u i d e t o F u n c t i o n a l A n a l y s e s

J e n n i f e r J a r v i s

Abs t rac t - -Th i s in t roductory guide for ESP teachers first draws at tent ion to the e l emen t s of language in use which analysts of language function seek to relate. It is sugges ted that researchers ' different loci of interest contribute to the complexity of meaning of the word "function". Three orientat ions in functional analysis are illustrated: the s tudy of language as meaning system, the s tudy of individual communicat ive acts, and the s tudy of functions in discourse organisation. It is sugges ted that the third orientation provides unders tand ings of particular use fu lness to ESP teachers .

Introduct ion

In my work in training teachers of ESP I am frequently required to try to explain the meaning of linguistic "function". Participants in the training course may, for example, find current ESP textbooks have the label "functional" but they are not sure to what in the contents the label applies. Communicate in Writing (Johnson 1981), for instance, has the subtitle A functional approach to writing through reading comprehension. The contents page includes a section called "Describing things and ideas" with sub- sections on "Referr ing back and giving new information", "Defining", "Classifying", "Comparing and Contrasting", etc. Looking through the book, participants note exerc ises in which students are required to "com- pare and cont ras t" given information, but also see exercises of the tra- ditional sen tence completion or transformation type. They want to unders tand if one sort of exercise is more "functional" than the other, and if so, on what criteria.

In seeking answers to such genuinely felt questions it has become in- creasingly clear to me that the idea of function in language is an ex t remely complex one. If we take the usual gloss of function as implying " the communicative use to which language is put" and then seek to identify communicative uses in discourse, we become involved in an undertaking which in essence is parallel to the current search in linguistics for an understanding of the communicative nature of language itself. As that is not a particularly helpful idea for classroom teachers (though it inspires some), I have en- deavoured to produce an ESP teacher ' s guide through the complexities of the current functional scene. It is a deliberately selective and perhaps idiosyncratic guide, but one which I hope provides an introduction to the features of language studied, and to some of the key figures whose work has affected current t rends in ESP teaching. The guide is therefore a " s ta r" tour in two senses of the word.

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I should first like to give a visual represen ta t ion of the e lements of language which seem to me to be involved in functional analysis (see Figure 1). Resea rche r s into functions have, I suggest , focused their r esea rch on different points of the star, and on different combinations of points, in their a t t empt s to make relat ionships be tween the e lements of language in use. This has perhaps contr ibuted to the many different g losses given to function in articles and tex tbooks on ESP. I shall now take the s tar as a r e fe rence point for the tour of the resea rch which follows. The research is divided into three main types.

The Approach of Researchers See ing Funct ion as Meaning System or Social Semiot ic

A fundamental orientation in functional analysis has been given by sociolinguists who investigate functions in order to gain grea ter understanding of language as a sys tem of meaning-giving, or in Halliday's terms, as social semiotic. Halliday, it will be r e m e m b e r e d , e iaborated the metafunct ions of language, the basic sense-making s y s t em s of humanity, as exp re s sed through language. He said (1978:16):

We are taking a functional view of language, in the sense that we are in- terested in what language can do, or rather in what the speaker, child or

Propositions/ Concepts/Notions

Language Forms

Communicative Acts

Situation/ Conventions of Participants

Figure 1.

An ESP Teacher's Guide to Functional Analyses 103

adult, can do with it; and . . , we try to explain the nature of language, its internal organisation and patterning, in terms of the functions it has evolved to serve.

Halliday, then, sees language as performing three metafunctions. These are the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual functions. While none of Halliday's metafunctions excludes any of the starred elements of language (as given in Figure 1), one can perhaps suggest that each can be seen as focusing on a particular set of elements. The ideational function mainly focuses on the propositional element, the interpersonal focuses on the communicative and participant elements, and the textual on the unifying centre, the organisation of discourse. Halliday's aim is, of course, the global one of generating a fuller understanding of language as system, and while it is inappropriate to go into detail here, his work has done much to make the study of the use of language thinkable. To give a very partial example, Halliday's work on the textual function of language, es- pecially as expressed in Halliday and Hasan (1976) has been of great influence in ESP. It has helped to generate awareness of devices of cohesion in English, leading to many pedagogic applications. Following Halliday and other researchers, such as Eugene Winter (1977) or Christine Tan San Yee (1975), we are more able to help students create and interpret text using a wide range of cohesive devices. Most ESP textbooks currently produced contain sections on the use of meaning-markers and devices of reference; and some include work on collocation, given-new sentence structure, ellipsis and substitution. I shall return to further research into the textual function, namely on discourse organisation, in a later section.

Many other sociolinguists have concentrated on understanding the sociocultural features which contribute to variation within language, and have attempted to understand how meaning is negotiated between participants (Gumperz and Hymes 1972). This interest involves a focus on the situation/ conventions point of the star. We can take as an example the work of Dell Hymes (1972) who has suggested the importance of the socially de- termined "rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be use- less" (1972:278). He has shown how competence in using a language cannot be thought of in terms of grammatical knowledge alone. Performing speech acts in speech events in a speech community involves an awareness of the language thought appropriate to the event in the community. "Com- municative competence", then, involves knowledge of the sociocultural rules of use such that the user can judge what is "possible, feasible, appropriate and performed" (1972: 281) in his linguistic community.

These ideas have clearly been of fundamental importance in ESP. Needs analysis of the language of a particular group of users depends on a theo- retical understanding of why it should be undertaken, and a methodological understanding of the features to study (Munby 1978). We also see the influence of ideas about the process of communicating meaning in the increasing emphasis on communicative activities in the ESP classroom. Here interactive features are recreated in order to generate practice in appropriacy, choice and negotiation of meaning (Edge and Samuda 1981).

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The Approach of Researchers Seeing Funct ion as Speech Act or Component of Language

A second ve ry powerful o r i en ta t ion in funct ional analysis is based on the work of John Sear le (1969, 1976). Sear le has s tudied the ways in which speech is used as a means of performing acts. He sugges ts (1969:16):

Speaking a language is performing speech acts, acts such as making state- ments, giving commands, asking questions, making promises, and so on; and more abstractly, acts such as referring and predicating; and, sec- ondly . . . . these acts are in general made possible by and are performed in accordance with certain rules for the use of linguistic elements.

One of Sea r l e ' s examples is of the speech act of promising. He gives the formal e x p o n e n t s of a p romise in Engl ish as (1976:17):

1 verb (you) + 1 Fut Vol Verb (NP) (Adv) I promise you I will pay the money [tomorrow]

It is only th rough the u t t e r a n c e of such forms that a p romise is achieved, hence the idea of an act ach ieved in speech. However , Sear le goes on to

e l abora te the ru les of nego t i a t ed m e a n i n g which m u s t be followed for the u t t e r a n c e of t he se forms to count as a p romise , r a the r than a th rea t or an in s ince r i ty (1969: 63):

Rule l, Promise (Pr) is to be uttered only in the context of a sentence (or larger stretch of discourse) T, the utterance of which predicates some future act A of the speaker S. I call this the propositional content rule.

Rule 2. Pr is to be uttered only if the hearer H would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A, and S believes H would prefer S's doing A to his not doing A.

Rule 3. Pr is to be uttered only if it is not obvious to both S and H that S will do A in the normal course of events. I call rules 2 and 3 preparatory rules.

Rule 4. Pr is to be uttered only if S intends to do A. I call this the sincerity rule.

Rule 5. The utterance of Pr counts as the undertaking of an obligation to do A. I call this the essential rule.

He re we have a ve ry i n t e r e s t i n g a t t e m p t to e labora te the conven t ions b e t w e e n par t i c ipan ts which make communica t ion possible . We could say that Sea r l e ' s work has focused on the communica t ive ac t / language form axis of the s tar , while also involving conven t i ons and propos i t ions .

O the r r e s e a r c h e r s with similar i n t e r e s t in inves t iga t ing individual com-

municat ive acts have t ended to concen t ra te more on the acts, their formal e x p o n e n t s and the no t ions e x p r e s s e d , and less on conven t ions of use. T h e y have also t r a n s f o r m e d the idea of act in speech into the more genera l s e n s e of act of communication. For example , van Ek and the r e s e a r c h e r s on the Council of E u r o p e M o d e r n Languages Pro jec t have worked to an- alyse the basic communica t i ve n e e d s of t r ave l l e r s within Europe . T h e y


have produced inventories (van Ek 1977, van Ek et al. 1980) of the communicative functions which such travellers might need to fulfil, and of the propositions or notions they might communicate. A traveller, for example, might need to impart and seek factual information. Under this heading might come the need to identify himself to others (the communicative function) by means of "My name is X" (the notion and formal exponent). Council of Europe inventories thus involve a listing of communicative acts, notions, and grammatical and lexical forms. They have been widely utilised as a reference tool by teachers and course-book writers, and many func- tionally orientated English language textbooks acknowledge a debt to them.

However, I think it could be said that informative though the Council of Europe publications are, their need to generalise across situations of use means that two crucial elements of language are given minimal at- tention. The organisation of functions in discourse and the weighting of use in situation and convention are inevitably understated. For example, the inventory suggests that a traveller can express agreement by using the exponent "Yes". However, "Yes" can mean "I agree" or "! have heard you" depending on the stage in the interaction and the situation of use. Searle's concern, therefore, to elaborate the rules of use as well as the elements of use has not always been evident in subsequent analyses of individual communicative functions. While the listing of individual functions has been a core endeavour of functional analysis, if the functions are abstracted from their social and discourse context the teacher is left with no clear means of ranking them in terms of importance or sequence of use.

It is, however, possible to see a third orientation in research, which draws on aspects of both orientations so far mentioned. Here the focus is on the unifying element of discourse organisation, and I now turn to research reflecting this focus.

The Approach of Researchers into Discourse Organisation

I should first like to consider researchers whose concern is to elaborate the functions used in particular discourses and who, to differing extents, use the study of the functions to illuminate patterns of discourse.

Jack Ewer (1981) has worked on the "microacts" typical in scientific texts, and has produced an inventory with clear parallels with Council of Europe work, but linked to the context of formal written and oral scientific English (textbooks, articles and lectures). He has divided the "microacts", or functions and notions, into two categories. These he calls "mainly informational" and "mainly attitudinal". He then gives grammatical, lexical and format/medium devices which provide exponents of each function under each category. An example (1981:2) of his inventory of "mainly informational" microacts is given in Table 1. Such research obviously provides a useful reference tool for the EST teacher. However, while it is related to scientific discourse, the inventory format does not illuminate when or

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Grammatical Indicators

Exemplifying

TABLE 1 Examples of Ewer's "Mainly Informational" Microacts

Others Lexical

Indicators Written Lecture s

N: CASE: EXAMPLE Visuals V: consider ( - examine, take as Brackets

an example); illustrate Colons Others: as follows; EOR EX- Dash

AMPLE (e.g.) ; for instance; Numeration say**; specifically; SUCH AS; thus; viz. (namely)

Visuals Realia

Backward Textual Reference DEMONSTRATIVES; RELA ANOTHER; all; both; each; former; Pointing to "FIVES; PRONOL,~S; -ED and LATTER; some; (see). . . ABOVE; what has -I~G forms as Relative with regard to, as regards already substitutes been

visually presented

**esp. in lectures

in what order the microacts can be mos t appropriately used. We have, in o ther words, an inventory of discourse e lements without a guide to discourse pat terning.

The widely-known work of Chr is topher Candlin (1976) on the English used by doctors in casualty wards provides another example of r e sea rch concentrat ing on functions in a particular context, but this t ime we also find an a t t empt to sugges t the discourse sequence in which the functions occur. The communicat ive functions used by the casualty doctor are grouped into Task-orientated functions and Metacommunicative functions. Task-orientated functions include eliciting information (Elicit), letting the patient know what is going to be done (Action-Inform), apologising for hurting the pat ient (Apology), etc. Metacommunicative functions include acknowledging receipt of a communication (Accept), or checking that the patient has unders tood (Feed-Me-Back) , etc. (1976:269-271). Not sur- prisingly, the sequence of use is controlled by the task, from greet ing to questioning to examining, etc. The metacommunicat ive functions are employed as meaning clarifiers, for example, to check on information given by the patient. One of the interest ing fea tures of the work, revealed by its grounding in a particular situation, is the multifaceted nature of the form-function link. The Action-Inform ut terance "We ' re just going to put a sti tch in" (1976:260) can have three separa te functions. It can inform the patient of what will happen next. It can reassure the patient. It can also direct the a t tendant nurse to bring the necessa ry instruments .

It would s eem that more si tuationally-precise discourse analysis may offer increased applicability at classroom level, as situation, function, form


and sequence can be interrelated. However, the problem still remains of identifying and relating the different levels of discourse and of function within the situation studied.

The work of Louis Trimble and his associates Larry Selinker, John Lackstrom and Mary Todd Trimble is interesting in this regard. The group has worked on the realisations of various functions in scientific discourse, including definitions, descriptions and classifications (Todd Trimble and Trimble 1977). They have also sought to identify the parameters of the "conceptual paragraph" in EST, and have described a ranking system for different levels of function within such a paragraph (Selinker et al. 1978). They describe their hierarchy in a "Rhetorical Process Chart", and examples of the levels in the chart (1978:312-313) are:

Level A: The Objectives of the Total Discourse Example: Detailing an Experiment

Level B: The General Rhetorical Functions Employed to Develop the Ob- jectives of Level A Example: Presenting Information on Apparatus: Description

Level C: The Specific Rhetorical Functions Employed to Develop the General Functions of Level B Example: Description: Physical and Function

Level D: The Rhetorical Techniques that Provide Relationships Within and Between the Units of Level C. Example: Space Order

This is a most interesting attempt to suggest a ranking of different levels of language function in discourse, particularly within a paragraph (Levels C and D), and leads us to the work of other researchers who have made the study of levels and patterns of discourse organisation their major concern. They see elaboration of organisational patterns as an essential means of making sense of the functional and grammatical elements within a text. These researchers, then, aim to produce generalisations about specific discourse types, and their work can be seen as the logical culmination of functional analysis, for in placing emphasis on the unifying element of discourse organisation, all the other elements of language in use are brought under observation.

An influential piece of research of this type has been undertaken by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) in their study of the language used in classroom discourse. They have elaborated a ranked system of organisational levels which operate within a classroom lesson. The largest level is the Transaction, marked by a boundary marker such as "Right", and consisting of a varying number of teacher-pupil Exchanges on a particular topic. An Exchange is a unit of interaction between the teacher and pupils and is the basic unit of interaction in a lesson. The most typical exchange is one when the teacher initiates, the pupil responds and the teacher evaluates the response. Each teacher or pupil utterance in an exchange counts as a Move and within a move there may be several Acts, each fulfilling a separate function. An example of the acts and moves forming an exchange is as follows (1975:90):

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Teacher:

Pupil:

Teacher:

TEXT ACT MOVE EXCHANGE

Hands up cue "l

Opening t What's that? elicitation

Paper clip reply } Answering Elicit

A paper clip, good. evaluate ] Follow-up / A paper clip accept

Sinclair and Coulthard's work has been highly influential, as besides pro- viding a ranking system which makes sense of language use, it also relates language use to the social and power relations within the classroom.

Another example of work concentrating on discourse patterning is that of Winter (1976) and Hoey (1979). Winter has suggested that there is a typical four-part pattern in informational prose. The pattern provides the information structure which counts as logical coherence. It involves the writer in first setting a Situation, then posing a Problem arising from the situation, then indicating a Solution or response to the problem, and con- cluding by giving a Result or Evaluation of the solution. Winter illustrates the pattern by giving a four-part story, designed to embody each part of the structure (1976:7):

STRUCTURE Situation Problem Solution Result/Evaluation

STORY I was on sentry duty I saw the enemy approaching I opened fire I beat off the enemy attack

While this example is deliberately simplified, Winter (1976) and Hoey (1979) provide further examples of the structure in operation in authentic texts, and are currently elaborating possible realisations of each part and of the shifts between each part. One interesting and pedagogically fruitful sug- gestion which they give is that we follow the order when reading a text by mentally "having a conversation" with the text. This involves asking questions such as "What is the Situation?", "What is the Problem to be solved?", "What is the Solution?", "How is the Solution to be evaluated?" The text then provides the answers.

This attempt to elaborate the information structure of informational prose such as technical reports is of obvious interest to ESP teachers. However, a problem that arises is that the structure is almost too inclusive, it can apply at a variety of levels from the four-sentence example to a full report. It is therefore not easy to avoid confusion between levels.

In research which limits the level of discourse about which generalisations are sought, John Swales (1981) has studied the particular genre of the introductory section of research articles. He suggests that the research- article introductions he has studied commonly have a Four Move structure. The Moves appear to involve a functional ranking at two levels. Swales summarises the structure as follows (1981:22a):


MOVE ONE: Establishing the Field A) Showing Centrality

i) by interest ii) by importance iii) by topic-prominence iv) by standard procedure

B) Stating Current Knowledge C) Ascribing Key Characteristics

MOVE TWO: Summarizing Previous Research A) Strong Author-Orientation B) Weak Author-Orientation C) Subject Orientation

MOVE THREE: Preparing for Present Research A) Indicating a Gap B) Question-Raising C) Extending a Finding

MOVE FOUR: Introducing Present Research A) Giving the Purpose B) Describing Present Research

i) by this~the present signals ii) by Move 3 take-up iii) by switching to First Person Pronoun

Here , each Move has a range of possible methods of achievement and Swales gives details of typical grammatical/lexical exponents of each. The work is particularly in teres t ing in the relationships sugges ted be tween motivation and linguistic choice. In Move Three for example, the wri ter may choose to p repare the reader for his own research by indicating a gap in the r e sea rch he has summar ised in Move Two. The suggest ion of a gap acts as an evaluation of the previous research, and is positively predict ive of the r e s e a r c h e r ' s own work, which will, of course, fill the gap.

This r e sea rch appears of clear value to those ESP teachers concerned with helping s tudents write or read resea rch articles, for it provides a f r amework for understanding why, when and how particular functions are used in article introductions. It also raises questions about the viability of functional generalisations across genres, and is thought provoking about what we can count as a genre in ESP. Perhaps too, the research provides fur ther evidence of the product ive nature of a concentrat ion on discourse organisation for understanding communicat ive function.

C o n c l u s i o n

This brief and int roductory " s t a r " tour has a t t empted to sugges t some of the ways in which functional analysis seeks the interrelation of a complex of e lements of language in use. The differences in focus of different resea rchers has led to functional r e sea rch which includes the global area of the nature of language, the s tudy of individual communicative acts and

1 1 0 The ESP Journal

FUNCTION AS

MEANING SYSTEM,

SOCIAL SEMIOTIC

1 SOCIOLINGUISTS

Halliday

Hymes

FUNCTION AS

COMMUNICATIVE

ACT

SPEECH ACT ANALYSTS

Searle

NEEDS ANALYSIS

van Ek

Council of Europe

FUNCTION IN DISCOURSE ORGANISATION

DISCOURSE ANALYSTS

Sinclair and Coulthard Ewer

Winter and Hoey Candlin et al.

Swales Trimble et al.

Figure 2.

the study of specific genres of discourse. A summary of the main research mentioned is given in Figure 2.

I should like to conclude with some questions which I find functional analysis can raise for ESP teachers:

1. If we accept that analysing functions involves making relationships between communicative acts, language forms, propositions, situations and discourse organisation, when is it valid to generalise from one communicative use of language to another?

2. Given the complex nature of language function, is it necessary or possible to prepare our s tudents to be ingroup members of an SP group?

3. Are there senses in which communicative functions can be seen as universal across languages?

REFERENCES

Candlin, C. N., J. H. Leather, and C. J. Bruton. 1976. Doctors in Casualty. International Review of Applied Linguistics 14, 3: 245-272.


Edge, J. and V. Samuda. 1981. Methodials: The Role and Design of Ma- terials and Methods. Communicative Course Design, 50-67. D. Richards (Ed.). RELC Occasional Papers 17. Singapore: SEAMO Regional Lan- guage Centre.

van Ek, J. A. 1977. The Threshold Level for Modern Language Learning in Schools. London: Longman Group Limited.

van Ek, J. A., L. Alexander, and A. Fitzpatrick. 1980. Waystage English. Oxford: Pergamon Press Ltd.

Ewer, J. R. 1981. Formal Written and Oral Scientific English: Main Mi- croacts and their Indicators. Santiago, Chile: Department of English, University of Chile.

Gumperz, J. J. and D. Hymes (Eds.). 1972. Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Halliday, M. A. K. Language as SocialSemiotic. London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London:

Longman Group Limited. Hoey, M. 1979. Signalling in Discourse. Discourse Analysis Monograph

6. Birmingham: English Language Research, University of Birmingham. Hymes, D. 1972. On Communicative Competence. Sociolinguistics, 269-

293. J. B. Pride and J. Holmes (Eds.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Johnson, K. 1981. Communicate in Writing. London: Longman Group

Limited. Munby, J. 1978. Communicative Syllabus Design. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. Searle, J. R. 1969. SpeechActs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. R. 1976. A Classification of Illocutionary Acts. Language in

Society 5, 1:1-23. Selinker, L., M. Todd Trimble, and L. Trimble. 1978. Rhetorical Function-

Shifts in EST Discourse. TESOL Quarterly 12,3:311-321. Sinclair, J, H. and M. Coulthard. 1975. Towards anAnalysis of Discourse.

Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swales, J. 1981. Aspects of Article Introductions. Aston ESP Research

Reports No. 1. Birmingham: Language Studies Unit, University of Aston in Birmingham.

Tan San Yee, C. 1975. Sequence Signals in Technical English. Regional English Language Centre Journal 6, 2: 63-101.

Todd Trimble, M. and L. Trimble. 1977. The Development of EFL Ma- terials for Occupational English. English for Specific Purposes: An In- ternational Seminar, 52-70. Proceedings of the Bogot~i-Paipa Seminar. London: The British Council. (This is a revised version of the longer paper which appears in English for Specific Purposes: Science and Tech- nology, 74-132. M. Todd Trimble, L. Trimble, and K. Drobnic (Eds.). Corvallis, Oregon: English Language Institute, Oregon State University, 1978.)

Winter, E. O. 1976. Fundamentals of Information Structure. London: Department of Linguistics, School of Humanities, Hatfield Polytechnic.

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Winter, E. O. 1977. A Clause Relational Approach to English Texts. In- structional Science, Volume 6, Special Issue.

Jennifer Jarvis trains ESP teachers in the Overseas Education Unit, University of Leeds. She has taught in Tanzania, Malawi and England, and regularly takes part in teacher-training seminars abroad. Her research interests are in methods of training L2 English-speaking teachers of English, and the reading needs of primary-level EFL teachers.

An ESP teacher's guide to functional analyses

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