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Conclusion

A grammatical analysis was conducted on two news articles appearing in a written/digital format on the critical social event of the riots in Alice Springs and the curfews that subsequently followed. An analysis of the salient features of the two texts, including the font and layout, examined the similarities and differences between them. A genre analysis of the two news articles and their similarities and differences was also performed using Swales’ moves to view the linguistic features and rhetorical function of the texts. The genre of the news article was then analysed through the lens of Systematic Functional Linguistics using the three kinds of meaning, or metafunctions, which represent the physical, social and mental world. These three metafunctions are related to three register groups explaining grammatical choices and how they affect the contextual meaning of a sentence. Finally, I recommended and explained the reasons for employing the use of similar texts in the teaching and...
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Application to teaching English as a Second Language

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Similar texts to the news articles that were analysed, could be used for teaching the genre of news report writing to learners of English as a second language. Authentic articles on current, local issues of interest could be chosen by students and the language used analysed. According to Devitt (2015, p.46),” teachers approach genre instruction through analysis, but more advanced learning happens through practice, feedback from experts in the genre, reflection, and then practice again." The target genre is firstly modeled by the teacher. A text is jointly constructed with learners and then the learner constructs the text independently. The teacher needs to have high expectations for the (English Language) EL learners and high support to help them gain confidence, through the scaffolding they provide. Learning grammar and vocabulary is learnt best when there is authentic meaning making. The teacher temporarily scaffolds for learning to support the English language learner, with...
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Analysing Clause Structure using Systematic Functional Linguistics

Analysing clause structure includes finding the functional parts of the clause from the three perspectives, the metafunctions. Ideational: Process, Participants, Circumstances-time, actor, process, place eg. (Recently Apple have expanded into China). In the textual metafunction, a clause is analysed into Theme and Rheme. Theme is the first element in an English clause. When the theme is changed, the textual meaning or arrangement of the information changes. In the interpersonal metafunction a clause is analysed into mood and residue. Analysing clauses from the two texts using the 3 metafunctions From Article 1: “Officers made several arrests” and seized more than 50 weapons, including spears, axes and clubs. In the textual metafunction, ‘officers’ is the theme and ‘made several arrests’ the rheme. In the ideational metafunction ‘offices’ is the participant/actor, ‘made several arrests’ is the process. In the interpersonal metafunction the ‘officers made’ is the mood and...
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Systematic Functional Linguistics

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Texts are viewed by SFL’s as being multi-functional. Halliday (2014, p. 83) stated that there are three main kinds of meaning “embodied in the structure of a clause." These three clause symptoms or  metafunctions were: Table 10.1  Painter (in   Burns & Coffin, 2013, p.177) In Summary: 1. Ideational: (experimental) meaning about the world: expressing what is going on, content of what is being talked about, concerns with the natural world, with clauses and representations: clause as representation, system of transivity, structure of process + Actor + Goal-(clauses as representation) 2. Interpersonal:  meaning between speakers: Constructing the relationship between speaker/writer and address, expressing stance (MOOD-declarative/interrogative/imperative, MODALITY- degrees of obligation eg. Should, must, POLARITY-positive/negative, VOCATION-terms of address sir, PERSON- ist, me, us, SPEECH FUNCTION- statement, question, answer, command, ATTITUDE-unfortunately : ...
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Genre Analysis of a News Article

Genres have a purpose. The purpose of a news article genre is to inform the reader about an event/s, or news. Genres of different cultures may vary even when the social purpose is similar. Most newspaper reports use past tense which explain people and events that have already occurred. People are usually interviewed and quoted about the event. Both of these features are true of the two news articles analysed. In article 1 past tense verbs are largely used to describe the extension of the curfew and the unrest including “had been”, “was imposed”, “has been”, “we’ve seen”. In article 2 past tense is also largely used such as “was introduced”, “couldn’t enter”, “was extended” However present tense is also used in both articles to describe the present reactions to the event, such as “has triggered mixed reactions” in article 2 and “the families are asking for help” in article 1. According to Fairclough, (2003, p.65), “when we analyse a text or interaction in terms of genre, we are as...
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An Analysis of the Texts using Swales' Moves

A genre analysis of the two news articles can also be analysed according to John Swales’ moves. According to Liu (2020, p. 427), "a move is primarily a linguistic unit performing rhetorical functions through text" and can, as Liu (2020) notes, vary in size such as by a clause or paragraph/s. Paltridge (2014) notes that Swales introduced the term ‘genre’ into the area of second-language (L2) writing and in English for specific purposes (ESP) in the 1980s. He began his teaching in the UK where he analysed research articles. As Devitt (2015, p. 44) states, John Swales “combined rhetoric and linguistics to explain genre as grounded in shared communicative purposes and discoverable through text analysis."   As Devitt (2015, p.45) states, “Swales’ Create a Research Space (CARS) model describes rhetorical moves typical in introductions to research articles.” Swales’ model can also be applied to other genres, such as the news articles. Askehave and Swales (in Paltridge, 2014) ...
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A Grammatical Analysis of the Texts presenting the Critical Social Event

The similarities and differences of the grammatical features of the two texts from the genre of a news article, will be analysed. Both articles are written in the genre of a news article and were presented in digital form on the internet. They share similar and different features. According to Fairclough (2003), newspaper reports have a predictable generic structure. Firstly, they have a headline. Both articles have a headline. In Article 1 the headline is: Alice Springs youth curfew extended beyond school break   In Article 2 the headline is: The youth curfew in Alice Spring has ended. What did we learn? Will it happen again?   The headings for both articles are written in bold writing in an enlarged font. Article 2 was written in the style of Segoe UI, size 24 font. Article 1 was written in Georgia style, font size 24. It was noted that in Article 2 the heading had a spelling error ‘Spring’, instead of ‘Springs’. The headline of Article 2 also contains tw...
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