Issues in Teaching Grammer

Form, Meaning, Function, and Use

If we are going to talk about a focus on form, it might be a good idea to make sure we all share a definition of what we mean by the word form.  While the term grammar refers to all the aspects or subdivisions of language to a linguist, the term form corresponds to what a layperson thinks of as the study of grammar, that is, specifically to the morphology and syntax of the language.  The focus on the form of language is often contrasted with a focus on the meaning (semantics) and a focus on the use (pragmatics).  M. Celce-Murcia and D. Larsen-Freeman (1999) describe the tripartite foci as subparts of the larger whole.  Fig. 5 gives a rendition of their pie chart.  Yet they are careful to point out that “it is admittedly difficult to establish firm boundaries between the wedges in the pie, . . . , linguistic categories often have fuzzy boundaries” (p. 5).

Fig. 5: The Tripartite Foci of Form, Meaning, and Use (Celce Murcia & Larsen Freeman, 1999, p. 4)

I have modified the Celce-Murcia Larsen-Freeman diagram to better illustrate the fuzzy boundaries that exist, and I like to bring a fourth term, function, into the discussion.  Fig. 5 depicts these modifications.  First, if form, meaning and use are depicted as intersecting circles rather than pie wedges, areas of overlap are clearly visible.  Secondly, since we are here primarily discussing the issue of linguistic forms and how form intersects meaning and use, it is those areas of overlap, not the overlap between meaning and use that we will encounter most frequently and that will need elaboration.

Two terms already exist in the literature to label the two overlap areas.  Semantic roles refers to the various categories of meaning that words often play in a sentence.  One syntactic form may have more than one semantic role.  Good examples are the prepositions.  Syntactically, the prepositional phrase at noon is exactly the same as the prepositional phrase at home.  In meaning, however, the first refers to time while the second refers to place.  The same form can play two different semantic roles.

The area of overlap between form and use can be labeled with the term grammatical roles (also sometimes called syntactic roles), and nouns provide familiar examples of one form playing different roles.  In the sentence the dog chased the cat, the noun phrase the dog plays the grammatical role of subject (its semantic role is agent, or doer of the action).  In the sentence the cat was chased by the dog, the noun phrase the dog no longer plays the grammatical role of the subject of the sentence, although it has kept its semantic role of agent.  Now it has the grammatical role of object of the preposition by.

Fig. 6: Form, Meaning, Function, and Use, ©2009 Houts-Smith

In order to capture the levels often called “roles” I use the term function, and the function level is identified by the rectangular box in Fig. 6.  I define the terms form, meaning, function, and use as:

Form: The relationship of a morphosyntactic structure to word and phrase categories of the language.  The labeling of words and phrases by their categories.

Meaning: The relationship of a morphosyntactic structure to the real world referents.  The defining of words and phrases by relating them to the real world.

Function: The relationship of a morphosyntactic structure to the other morphosyntactic structures in the same sentence.  The labeling of words and phrases according to their placements within a sentence and their meaning relationships to the other words and phrases in the same sentence.

Use: The relationship of a morphosyntactic structure to the larger context, especially to social elements in the context such as politeness or appropriateness.  The issue of standard and nonstandard language is really an issue of use or pragmatics.

This chapter still needs a conclusion.

Lesson Planning