The Functional Approach,1. Functional sentence perspective,Apart from the analysis of a sentence in terms of subject and predicate from the formal point of view, there may be also a functional analysis in terms of THEME and RHEME. The first term refers to “ that which is known or at least obvious in the given situation and from which the speaker proceeds”, and the second “what the speaker states about, or in regard to, the starting point of the utterance”. In English, word order has a grammatical function, and theme and rheme are often expressed by the grammatical subject and predicate. Nevertheless there are formal, empty, subjects like it in Its raining and Theres a man outside.,The analysis of a sentence in terms of theme and rheme is also referred to as actual sentence division by Mathesius in Czech, which is now known as the functional sentence perspective “because this patterning is determined by the functional approach of the speaker”. Another version of the same analysis is carried out in terms of COMMUNICATIVE DYNAMISM, though the different degrees of the thematic and rhematic character of sentence elememts were even mentioned by Mathesius. 2. Systemic-functional grammarThis linguistic theory has been developed by the British born Australian linguist M.A.K Halliday.As the name suggests, it has two characteristics: systemic and functional.,The SYSTEMIC part comes directly from the first linguistics chair in Britain John Firth.Language is a social phenomenon, and emphasizes the study of language in relation to the functions it performs.Halliday observed that the German psychologist had a tripartite classification of language functions: representative, expressive, and appelative.What is new in Halliday is that he has tried to relate the functions of language to its structures.,The subject is a complex of four distinct functions, three in the structure of the clause:actor(logical subject): ideationalmodal subject(grammatical subject): interpersonaltheme(psychological subject1): textualgiven(psychological subject2): textual,