1887
Australian Applied Language Studies
  • ISSN 0155-0640
  • E-ISSN: 1833-7139
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Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate how Halliday’s Functional Grammar (1985) may be used to illuminate educational questions, more specifically to illuminate the study of classroom discourse. Portion of a text from the lower primary school is examined. It is in fact drawn from a Morning News learning activity. It is argued that we can identify a “curriculum genre” in such a text, and that this has certain characteristic elements, giving it a particular schematic structure. These elements are identified, and two aspects of the functional grammar – namely, Theme and transitivity – are used with a view to proving the presence of the schematic structure. Through the examination, it is argued that the meanings children are constrained to make in the Morning News situation are of a limited kind, revealing a great deal about the limitations of much early childhood education.

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/content/journals/10.1075/aral.10.2.11chr
1987-01-01
2024-04-18
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References

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  • Article Type: Research Article
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