A-functional-approach-to-sla-givons-functional-typological-syntactic-analysis电子版.pdf

A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH TO SLA: GIVON’S FUNCTIONAL- TYPOLOGICAL SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS Rezvan Noormohamadi Islamic Azad University - IRAN Rezvan Noormohamadi is a researcher at the Science and Research Branch of the Islamic Azad University, Iran. Introduction Functionalists view language primarily in terms of its use in the context of situations, focusing on meaning conveyed in different situations. In functional studies of second language acquisition, researchers are concerned with the ways in which second language learners set about making meaning, and achieving their personal communicative goals (Mitchell Myles, 2004). In other words in this view, language learning evolves out of learning how to carry on a conversation and syntactic constructions develop out of conversations. In deed, Givon‟s (cited in Larsen- Freeman Long, 1991) in his „functional-typological syntactic analysis ‟ claims syntax comes from properties of human discourse. This paper draws on Givons theory of „syntactization‟ in which speakers and linguistic systems move from a discourse-based, pragmatic mode of communication to a syntactic mode. It concludes L2 learners need to be scaffolded with functional use of the language in the process of second language acquisition. Background In the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Blackburn (1996) defines „function‟ based on logic and mathematics as a map or mapping, that associates members of one class with some unique member of another class. In SLA, the map is between form and potential meaning (here called function). In other words, meaning-ma