From 1970 onwards, Halliday worked on the functional aspect of grammar. He mentioned the language as a form of ＂doing＂ rather than a form of ＂knowing＂. He believes that language is what it is because it has to ser...From 1970 onwards, Halliday worked on the functional aspect of grammar. He mentioned the language as a form of ＂doing＂ rather than a form of ＂knowing＂. He believes that language is what it is because it has to serve certain function. In other words, social demands on language have helped to shape its structure. This theory distinguishes linguistic behavior potential from actual linguistic behavior. That means the speaker can do many things in certain language： making an invitation, expressing hope, inquiry, agreement, refuse and etc. Therefore EFL teaching is to develop the abilities to communicate with others, that is, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. This paper wants to discuss Halliday＇s theory about the functional approach and how to make good use of it to the language leaming and teaching.展开更多
文摘From 1970 onwards, Halliday worked on the functional aspect of grammar. He mentioned the language as a form of ＂doing＂ rather than a form of ＂knowing＂. He believes that language is what it is because it has to serve certain function. In other words, social demands on language have helped to shape its structure. This theory distinguishes linguistic behavior potential from actual linguistic behavior. That means the speaker can do many things in certain language： making an invitation, expressing hope, inquiry, agreement, refuse and etc. Therefore EFL teaching is to develop the abilities to communicate with others, that is, listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. This paper wants to discuss Halliday＇s theory about the functional approach and how to make good use of it to the language leaming and teaching.
