Communicative and Academic Functions

We have adapted Mary Finocchiaro's functional categories for our purposes (Finocchiaro & Brumfit, 1983, pp. 65-66). These fall under five major categories: personal , interpersonal, directive, referential and imaginative. Specific examples of functions under each category appear below (note that not all possibilities are included; instead, an array of functions is listed to exemplify each category). Academic functions have been adapted from Chamot & O’Malley (1994) and O’Malley & Pierce (1996).

Personal (Back to Top)

clarifying or arranging one's ideas

expressing one's thoughts or feelings (love, joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes and dislikes, satisfaction, disappointment, distress, pain, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety, sorrow, frustration, annoyance at missed opportunities, etc.)

expressing moral, intellectual, and social concerns

expressing the everyday feelings of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, and warmth

Interpersonal (Back to Top)

greeting and leave-takings

introducing people to others

expressing joy at another's success (or disappointment at another's misfortune)

expressing concern for other people's welfare

extending and accepting invitations

refusing invitations politely or making alternative arrangements

making appointments for meetings

breaking appointments politely and arranging another mutually convenient time

apologizing

excusing oneself and accepting excuses for not meeting commitments

indicating agreement or disagreement

interrupting another speaker politely

changing an embarrassing subject

receiving visitors and paying visits to others

arguing or debating

offering food or drinks and accepting or declining such offers politely

sharing wishes, hopes, desires, problems, beliefs, thoughts, opinions, etc.

asking about others' wishes, hopes, desires, problems, beliefs, thoughts, opinions, etc.

making promises and committing oneself to some action

complimenting someone

making excuses

Directive (Back to Top)

Directive function attempts to influence the actions of others. These include:

accepting or refusing direction

making suggestions in which the speaker is included

persuading someone to change his/her point of view

requesting and granting permission

requesting information

asking for help and responding to a plea for help

forbidding someone to do something; issuing a command

giving and responding to instructions or directions

warning someone

discouraging someone from pursuing a course of action

establishing guidelines and deadlines for the completion of actions

asking for directions or instructions

Referential (Back to Top)

talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment

identifying items or people in the classroom, the school, the home, the community

asking for a description of someone or something

describing someone or something

understanding messages or descriptions

creating questions

scanning or skimming for information

paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating (L1 to L2 or vice versa

interpreting information

explaining or asking for explanations of how something works

comparing or contrasting things

discussing possibilities, probabilities, or capabilities of doing something

requesting or reporting facts about events or actions or about a text

hypothesizing

formulating and supporting opinions

evaluating the results of an action or an event

Imaginative (Back to Top)

discussing a poem, a story, a text, an advertisement, a piece of music, a play, a painting, a film, a TV program, etc.

story-telling, narrating events

experiencing and/or discussing a simulation (e.g., of an historical event)

expanding ideas suggested by others or by a piece of reading

creating rhymes, poetry, stories, plays, or scripts

recombining familiar dialogues or passages creatively

suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogues or stories

solving problems or mysteries

Academic (Back to Top)

seeking information/informing—observe and explore the environment, acquire information, inquire, identify, report, or describe information
informing—recount information provided by a teacher/text; retell a story or personal experience
comparing—describe similarities and differences in objects or ideas
ordering—sequence objects, ideas, events
classifying—group objects or ideas according to their characteristics
analyzing—separate whole into parts; identify relationships and patterns
inferring—make inferences, predict implications, hypothesize
justifying and persuading—give reasons for an action, decision, point of view; convince others
solving problems—define/present a problem and determine a solution
synthesizing—combine or integrate ideas to form a whole

Sources:

Chamot, A .U. & O’Malley, J. M. (1994). The CALLA handbook: Implementing the cognitive academic language learning approach. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Finocchiaro, M. & Brumfit, C. (1983). The functional-notional approach. NY: Oxford University Press.
O’Malley, M. & Valde

Pierce, L. (1996). Authentic assessment for English Language Learners. White Plains, NY: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.