Developing an SFL-based rubric for communication

My colleagues and I are trialing a new grading rubric from this semester for general English communication classes. The systems for grading I’ve seen based on SFL so far seem to fall into two camps: genre-based or EAP. For our purposes however, these two have certain limitations that make them unusable. Like many (in particular) Asian contexts we use a textbook for our main general English classes upon which the syllabus is based. As such, the most common genre-based instructional cycle, introducing Narrative, Recount, etc., is difficult to incorporate into the syllabus for any quantitative grading purposes. Also, it is a four-skills general English course for mostly lower level students at a technical college rather than any written essay-based academic English course.

We also wanted to find a more communicative grading system to encourage students to extend their concept of “correct” beyond merely the bare minimum grammatical answers they have previously been used to in high school, which is focused primarily on passing university entrance exams and so was never seen as particularly relevant to our students who do not intend to go on to academic study. The grading system we developed was loosely based upon the concept of the 7 C’s of Communication first introduced in 1952 by Scott M. Cutlip and Allen H. Center. For our purposes, however, we limited it to 5 C’s that are easier for students to understand:

1. Clear
2. Correct
3. Concrete
4. Complete
5. Courteous

These 5 C’s correspond to the SFL rank scale.

Clear is the Expression rank. Does the student basically answer the question? Do they have clear pronunciation? Do they use correct punctuation?

Correct is Lexico-grammar. Is the student’s answer grammatically correct? Do they use appropriate lexical choices for the task?

Concrete (or Cohesion) is above the clause at Semantic rank. Does the student use resources of cohesion to link ideas? Are clauses organized appropriately according to Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual resources? Is register appropriate to task?

Complete (or Coherence) is at the level of Context of Situation. Does the student use appropriate field, tenor and mode choices? Is the text organized coherently?

Courteous is the Context of Culture but here it is the culture of the classroom. Is the student responsive to their partner? Does the student participate appropriately to the standards expected by the culture of that class and institution?

Each ‘C’ is given a score of 1 or 0. The total is a score of 10 with 6/10 being a passing grade. 5 points are awarded for classroom attendance and general participation. This was deliberately chosen as traditionally many Asian academic contexts had a grade based merely on attendance and a final exam where the students were not expected to actively participate in classes. In our system however, if a student attends but does not participate, the student will still fail. Also, the more they participate, the higher their score so the onus becomes more student-focused.

Here are some examples of written work and how they would be scored. The task was “What are your plans for this year?”

Example 1: My plan is find a job. (6/10)

• Clear = 1 (gives the minimum answer, punctuation satisfactory)
• Correct = 0 (small grammatical error but also does not show evidence of extending their lexico-grammar beyond the bare minimum clause)
• Coherent = 0 (doesn’t give extra information or link ideas across clauses)
• Cohesive = 0 (doesn’t organize ideas in any meaningful way)
• Courteous = 0 (doesn’t make any attempt at a personal response to the question)

Example 2: My plans for this year is to go snowboarding in Nagano. But I don’t think I can go because of the coronavirus. I wanted to travel to Kyoto and Okinawa. But I can’t do that because of the coronavirus. I just hope that it will die out soon. (10/10)

• Clear = 1 (gives the minimum answer and correct punctuation)
• Correct = 1 (lexico-grammatical choices good for level)
• Coherent = 1 (gives some extra information and organizes ideas generically)
• Cohesive = 1 (gives enough detailed information and links ideas with conjunction and reference)
• Courteous = 1 (makes a personal response to the question)

We’ll see how it goes anyway…

Appraisal (Overview)

Here are two sentences:

Luton Town nearly won.

Luton Town were on the verge of what would’ve been a giant-killing act.

In terms of the meaning, the two seem to be the same. Yet there is some fundamental difference between them. The first sentence is merely describing the action, a factual statement, while the second is adding something of our opinion of the event. The second sentence comes from a Guardian newspaper sports report. The sports “report” is a bit of a misnomer really as we generally already know the result. It actually functions to evaluate various aspects of the the game: Was it exciting? Did the better team win? How were the players? As such, it uses a lot of language to provide the writer’s opinion. According to Martin & White, we can call this the ‘language of evaluation’, or appraisal.

Appraisal can be looked at from three perspectives. The first of these is what is termed ENGAGEMENT. As I said above, we can make a fundamental distinction in language between facts and opinion. We present some piece of information as either an agreed-upon fact of the world, a monogloss, or open to interpretation from different points of view, a heterogloss. Martin & White give the example of the difference between the following:

Francis Bacon was the author of The Tempest. (monogloss)

They say Francis Bacon was the author of The Tempest. (heterogloss)

It is important to remember that a monogloss is not necessarily true but is being presented as such while heterogloss can be used to cast doubts upon something, for example President Trump’s comments on global warming casting doubt on the scientific consensus  (“But I don’t know that it’s man-made”) while presenting an alternate hypothesis as fact (“Something’s changing and it’ll change back again”).

The second perspective is our ATTITUDE towards something, which itself can be expressed in two ways. Firstly, we can give an emotional response to something, in what can be termed AFFECT. This can be done in one of three ways: Mental Processes (e.g. I love Liverpool FC), nouns (e.g. My passion is for Liverpoool FC) or adjectives (e.g. Liverpool FC is great!). Secondly we can make a distinction between human or non-human participants. For human entities, we can pass JUDGEMENT in terms of positive or negative behaviors or attributes, while for non-human entities we can pass APPRECIATION. For example, this headline has an example of both:

• He is proof god exists (JUDGEMENT)
• Messi Fans Respond…After Ridiculous Freekick Goal (APPRECIATION)

The third perspective of Appraisal is GRADATION, whereby we can make our opinions toward something stronger or softer through FORCE and sharper or softer through FOCUS. For example, in sports reporting we might want to compare a team that wins 6-0 easily against one that struggles to win 1-0, as in an opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper that talks about “thumping wins” (FORCE:raise) and “not so pretty ones” (FORCE:lower). Additionally, we might want to consider something in terms of how it conforms to our notions of class membership, for example the same Guardian opinion piece characterizes Eddie McGuire’s apology as a “qualified apology ” (FOCUS:soft) and the “acute embarrassment” (FOCUS:sharpen) his comments brought to the AFL. 

The system of Appraisal can thus be represented as:

This is not to say that it is one or the other, as there is often overlap between them and one item can simultaneously function in different ways. For example the phrase ” a giant-killing act” could be analysed as:

• ATTITUDE: positive appreciation
• GRADATION: raised force

As ever, please look here for a clearer explanation!

References:

J. R. Martin and P. R. R. White (2005) The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave, London.

The Appraisal Website

Interpersonal Theme

This is an exchange from the TV show ‘Friends’ (Season 1, Episode 4) between the characters Monica and Joey:

Monica: Hey, Joey, what would you do if you were omnipotent?

Joey: Probably kill myself!

Here we can see that certain elements of the conversation have been foregrounded reflecting the personal nature of the conversation. These are called the interpersonal Theme, and include:

• Vocatives: “Joey”
• Modal adjuncts: “Probably”
• Wh- questions: “what”
• Finite operators, like modals.

 

R.I.P

Vale M.A.K.Halliday

Transitivity

TRANSITIVITY, along with MOOD and THEME, is one of the three “principal systems of the clause” (H&M, p.10) which the the central unit of lexico-grammar. The world around us is constantly changing and in flux. Think about the action in a game:

We can represent this picture is several different ways. The batter is Viv Richards, he is hitting the ball for six, or he is out. The system of TRANSITIVITY allows us to represent the world as this constant flow of experience, who does what to whom under what circumstances, and construe this experience as “a quantum of change in the flow of events as a figure” (H&M, p.213). There are three elements to the system of TRANSITIVITY as a figure:

Transitivity structures express representational meaning: what the
clause is about, which is typically some process, with associated participants
and circumstances (H&M, p.361)

We can thus represent the picture above as being composed of these three elements, centered around the Process:

For EFL, viewing the clause from the perspective of TRANSITIVITY is particularly useful in highlight the differences between phrases that may appear the same to  a learner. For example, consider the two sentences:

1. I looked up the building
2. I looked up the building

While they have the same words, there are fundamental differences between them which can be explained through the transitivity. In sentence 1., the Process ‘looked up’ refers to searching on, for example, Google Maps, while the second refers to physically looking:

1.

I	looked up	the building
Participant	Process	Participant

2.

I	looked	up the building
Participant	Process	Circumstance

It can also highlight the differences between Participants and Circumstances, for example:

1.

He	is hitting	the ball	for six
Participant	Process	Participant	Circumstance

2.

He	is hitting	the ball	for the West Indies
Participant	Process	Participant	Participant

 

 

Grammer

I’ve just noticed that on the cover of IFG it spells ‘grammar’ with an ‘e’ 🙂

EFL Listening Tasks

I must admit I find most EFL listening tasks a little strange. The usual format in most textbooks I’ve used is to listen to a conversation and then answer set questions about it. It is a conversation as product, with the student relegated to the role of observer of the text, rather than text as process with the student being an active participant in the text as it unfolds. In effect, it is teaching them the skill of eavesdropping…

Critical

An interesting little example of how lexico-grammar affects meaning from a business class today:

The people were critical of the decision.

The decision was critical for the people.

SMH technology

Here’s a little example from the Sydney Morning Herald of new technology causing language change:

”Why is it that the new compact Herald eschews the words ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ in every article it presents?” asks Rod Blackmore, of Thornleigh. It’s because these days the paper appears in many forms, is read in various time zones and updated electronically throughout the day, that ”yesterday” and ”tomorrow” can cause confusion. Column 8 has fallen into line too, you may have noticed.

Examples of modality

I added a PDF of Examples of Modality (positive) to the Resources page.