Using Systemic Functional Grammar as a Vehicle for the Integrated Teaching of Language and Literature in a First-year University English Course

Abstract

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is a grammar developed largely in Australia by Michael Halliday and others, and is not widely taught or utilised in South Africa. This article describes a first-year university course, English Language and Literature, which utilises SFG as a means of teaching aspects of functional and critical literacy in relation to literary and non-literary texts. Focusing on the grammar, the writer describes the course which she designed and currently teaches in the English Department of the East London Campus of Rhodes University. An account is given of the rationale for using this grammar, and of the way in which it lends itself to an integrated approach to language and literature studies. The issue of the appropriate academic discourse for the implementation of such an approach is also raised.