Posted on : July 5, 2015
Grammar into discourse: A framework for analyzing how texts make meaning
Priscilla Angela T. Cruz
Ateneo De Manila University
Workshop description
This workshop is concerned with exploring how grammar makes meaning through word groups, clauses, and the body of clauses that form texts. In its exploration, it will examine grammar as a semogenic or meaning-making system whose rules are inextricably linked with the meanings that users can make in various contexts or uses. As such, this workshop will potentially build knowledge about language (Rose and Martin, 2012) by providing participants with a framework for understanding the link between the rules of grammar and the meanings that a text can make. During this workshop, participants will be led into an examination of clauses as composed of “chunks of meaning” (Derewianka, 2011). Then, it will present the Transitivity framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics in order to examine how these chunks of meaning connect in clauses to grammatically construe experience. Finally, it will present some options for examining how the meanings in clauses combine to form longer texts. As a close study of how grammar builds texts, It can be valuable for teachers who are looking for ways to enrich the building of language skills in the K-12 curriculum. It can also be valuable for researchers who are interested in analyzing how discourse works to prioritize some meanings over others. Overall, it will be valuable for teachers, students, and researchers who are interested in deepening their knowledge of the meaning-making potential of language.
Bionote
Priscilla Angela T. Cruz is a faculty member of the Department of English, Ateneo de Manila University. She has been teaching for about 15 years now. Her research interests include discourse analysis, education linguistics, language variation, interfacing language and literature work, and Systemic Functional Linguistics.