The Differences between Traditional and Functional Grammar

Based on experience and observing in functional grammar classes, analyzing texts is one kind of the process of functional grammar learning. Texts to be analyzed can be taken from authentic material. There are different resources to analyze written texts such as newspaper, magazine, advertisement, etc. While, to analyze spoken texts, the material can be taken from dialogues in the film or novel.

Perception

Perception has various definitions from various angles. Bloom says that "perception is the process or act of perceiving information and making sense of it".

As stated in New Lexicon Webster International Dictionary of English Language perception is (1) the act of perceiving, apprehension with the mind or the senses; (2) an immediate of intuitive recorition, as of a moral or esthetic quality; (3) the faculty of perceiving, as distinguished from the act of perceiving. Meanwhile, in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (2000), perception is defined as "an idea, a belief or an image you have as a result of how we see and understand something".

Still in the discussion about perception, in Wikipedia Encyclopedia, an internet based encyclopedia, "perception is a process that involves selecting, organizing, and interpreting stimuli in our environment".

Heither (2003) explains that "perception refers to interpretation of what we take in through our sense". He notes that the way we perceive our environment is what makes us different from other animals and different from each other.

From the definitions stated above, the researcher concludes that perception can be thought as each individual's personal theory of reality, through the process of interpreting and attributing meaning to what he/she observed or experienced.

Briefly, perception refers to view and feeling. Therefore, two kinds of instruments were used for the data collection. They were questionnaire and interview.

Based on the statement of functional grammar purpose, that is to support the development of ability to speak and write English correctly. It means that functional grammar can be applied by English Department students in language skill, speaking in particular. Related to the statement, to measure students' perception about their ability to apply functional grammar in analyzing text and speaking can be seen from educational objectives goal of cognitive domain (Bloom Taxonomy) in the third level. The third levels are knowledge. comprehension and application.

Ability to Apply

In Webster's New World Dictionary of American English (1998), ability is a skill, expertness, or talent. Meanwhile in Cambridge International Dictionary (1995) ability is the physical or mental power or skill needed to do something.

As stated in Longman Dictionary of English Language and culture (1998) ability is the fact of having the skill, power or other qualities that are needed in order to do something. While, Bloom (1956) cited in Elliot et all. (2000) proposes classification of educational objectives, related to 1: Cognitive Domain. There are 6 major classes: (1) knowledge - recalling specific facts, (2) comprehension - understanding what is communicated, (3) application - generalizing and using abstract information in !concrete situations, (4) analysis - breaking problem into subparts and detecting relationships among the parts, (5) synthesis - putting together part to form a whole, (6) evaluation - using criteria to make judgments.

Later these categories were revised, as stated by Arend RI (2004), the last two categories of Bloom's Taxonomy that are synthesis and evaluation were revised to become evaluate and create. To be more details, Arend proposes cognitive process categories into the following. (1) remember - retrieve relevant knowledge from long-term memory, (2) understand - construct from instructional -messages, including oral, written, and graphic communication, (3) apply - carry out or use a procedure in a given situation, (4) analyze - break material into constituent parts and determine how, parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose, (5,) evaluate - make judgment based on criteria and standards, (6) create- put elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganize elements into a new pattern or structure.

Based on Bloom's Taxonomy, ability to apply occurs after ability to know and to comprehend. Related to the study of identifying English Department students' ability to apply functional grammar to improve their speaking ability, the inclusion of ability to know or knowledge and ability to comprehend (comprehension) is therefore considered necessary.

Speaking

In the discussion about speaking, Broomly (1988) explains that "Speaking is an expressive language kill which the speaker symbols to communicate".

While, Jones (1989) says speaking is a form of communication that has four elements i.e. speaker, receiver (listener), message and channel (communication tools such as, telephone, Internet, letter, face to face interaction, etc).

Still in the discussion about speaking, in communicating, people also produce, sounds, choosing the right form, putting words in the correct order and so forth. This is also supported by W.F. Mackey (in Bygate 1995) who says that in oral expression people not only involve the right sounds, the right pattern of rhythm and intonation but also the choice of words and inflection in the right order to convey the right meaning.

When we speak to other people, it means that we express our ideas or our feelings orally. This statement is supported in Webster Dictionary(1998) "to speak is to express thoughts opinions or feelings orally.

The problems of “parts of speech classification”

The classification of word classes has always been one of the major controversial issues in linguistics. To start with, the term “parts of speech” itself presents a certain problem: it was developed in Ancient Greek linguistics and reflects the fact that at that time there was no distinction between language as a system and speech, between the word as a part of an utterance and the word as a part of lexis. The term “parts of speech” is accepted by modern linguistics as a conventional, or “non-explanatory” term (“name-term”) to denote the lexico-grammatical classes of words correlating with each other in the general system of language on the basis of their grammatically relevant properties.

Traditionally, there are three types of grammatically relevant properties of words that differentiate “parts of speech”: semantic, formal and functional properties. They make the criteria for the traditional classification of parts of speech. The semantic criterion refers to the generalized semantic properties common to the whole class of words, e.g.: the generalized (or, categorial) meaning of nouns is “thingness”, of verbs process, of adjectives substantive property, of adverbs non-substantive property. The formal criterion embraces the formal features (word-building and word-changing) that are characteristic for a particular part of speech, e.g.: the noun is characterized by a specific set of word-building affixes, cf.: property, bitterness, worker, etc., and is changed according to the categories of number, case and article determination: boy-boys, boy – boy’s, boy – the boy – a boy, etc. Combinability is also a relevant formal feature for each particular part of speech; for example, verbs can be modified by adverbs, while nouns cannot (except in specific contexts). The functional criterion is based on the functions that the words of a particular class fulfill in the sentence, e.g.: the most characteristic functions of the noun are those of a subject and an object; the only function of the finite form of the verb is that of a predicate; the adjective functions in most contexts as an attribute; the adverb as an adverbial modifier.

In general, classifications may be based either on one criterion (such classifications are called homogeneous, or monodifferential), or on a combination of several criteria (such classifications are called heterogeneous, or polydifferential). The traditional classification of parts of speech is polydifferential (heterogeneous); it is based on the combination of all the three criteria mentioned above: ‘meaning – form – function’. The employment of the three criteria combined, in present-day mainstream linguistics, was developed mainly by V. V. Vinogradov, L. V. Scherba, A. I. Smirnitsky, B. A. Ilyish and others.