AN ARTICLE REVIEW

INTERPERSONAL METAFUNCTION OF GENDER TALK

IN ELT CLASSROOMS

Mohammad Qushoy
0201618014
Pascasarjana Universitas Negeri Semarang
This Article Review consists of:
• Introduction
• Summary of the research article
• The analysis
• Positive points of the Article
• The concerns
• The conclusion
Introduction
The Journal:
Journal of Academic and Applied Studies
Vol. 1(2) July 2011, pp. 25-32. Available online @
www.academians.org
The Article
Interpersonal Metafunction of Gender Talk in ELT
Classrooms.
The authors
Seyed Mahdi Araghi and Kamal Shayeghi.
Department of ELT and General Linguistics. Ahar branch.
Islamic Azad University. Ahar. Iran. Corresponding Author:
kamalshayegh@yahoo.com
Summary of the Article
Bakcground of the study
• Gender variant has less been concerned in language studies.
• Some of the performed researches are related to language
teaching in bilingual areas.
• The different kinds of clausal structure (declarative, integrative,
imperative, and Exclamative) used by males and females in
ELT classroom are studied on the basis of Hallidayian systemic
Functional grammar from interpersonal metafunction
perspective to show the way which meaning is exchanged
between interlocutors.
• Exchange among students of ELT classes with different
genders in bilingual context of situation causing high level of
language proficiency by reorganizing different types of clausal
structures.
 Objectives of the research
The objective of their study was to determine different
clausal structure such as Declaratives, Integratives,
Imperatives, and Exclamatives used by interlocutors with
different gender in bilingual classroom.
 Theoretical Framework
• Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (1985: 11) considers
text analysis as discourse one and states that during a
conversation, speaker may give something to addressee or ask
something from him.
• Halliday’s two speech acts of giving and demanding, and four
speech functions called offer, demand, information and
question. He states, in studying Declarative and Integrative
clauses and different responses to them, interpersonal
meaning is expressed throughout just a specific grammatical
component in the clause. He calls that part of the clause Mood.
• Eggins (2004:144) states using language, one of the processes
occurred in conversation is creating communication among
people speaking or may speak in the next turn-taking.
 Previous Research
• Mehrabi (2006) studies the role of gender in interpretation
of silence in discourse. This research shows whether the
gender of conversing people and the gender of the population
employed in the research has any effect on interpretation of
silence or not.
• Dasturi and Bastani (2007: 5-30) study the effect of gender
on discourse in two contemporary translations of Quran,
showing the meaning system that the democratic system has
created.
• Allaei et al (2010: 211-228) have studied exchange of
meaning in humanity science textbooks on the base of
Hallidayian systemic functional grammar from the viewpoint of
interpersonal metafunction.
 Research Methodology
They used oral form of teacher-students interaction in the
classroom context as its corpus. The oral conversation
between students and teacher was taken from eight
randomly different classrooms since there were two
populations in the study. Each population consisted of four
classes of male and female students. The recorded and
transcribed conversation in the study resulted to 3288
clauses.
 The research result and discussion
• Mood of most clauses by males and females in classroom
discourse are declarative and dominant Mood is
declarative of third person singular simple present tense.

• In contrast, the study showed both genders have used

less integrative in their conversation.

• Imperatives were used with low frequency in classroom

discourse and both genders did not used any
exclamatives in their conversation.
• In Declaratives, speakers intend to express information to
the addressee. In fact exchange process of meaning in
this kind of clauses is one-sided and in its least active
form.
• In Integratives, the route of interaction is two-sided and
active. In Integratives, addressee can refer to his mind,
providing an answer to the question or express his
unawareness on it.
• In interaction between teacher and student in this
research, the process of exchange is one-sided in both
genders, in which speakers just provide new information.
 Conclusion of the research
• Reconstructing clausal structures used by different genders in
ELT classrooms may result into students’ high language
proficiency in bilingual context of situation. That is, using
Integratives for declaratives may make interlocutors take part
much more in classroom discourse, causing interpersonal
meaning to transfer more.

• Different number of clause that produced by both genders

related to social status and its effect on speech production in
the context of class. For example, males have higher social
and occupational position, while employed in low ranked
position in the society. Consequently, this ends to unequal
speech production which is overtly observed in the context of
class.
The Evaluation
The positive points of the research article
1. The result of the study has achieved the purpose or objective of the
study in which to determine the different clausal structures used by
different genders in bilingual classroom.
2. This is a good article in terms that it can meet all aspect of scientific
journal; started from the abstract to the conclusion. They are
presented in the article yet they are not completely detailed.
3. It clearly states the important of the research and the description of
it is clear, straightforward, and easy to follow.
4. The article presents some previous researches related the topic to
support the reason why they took interpersonal metafunction as
their main topic. Accordingly, this can give appropriate background
knowledge to the reader regarding the topic being investigated.
Moreover, it makes a good and clear communication of the
research finding so that it develops reader’s understanding.
5. The article is original and give an interesting topic.
 The concerns of the article
1. Research method, research question is not clearly stated in the
article. The writers don’t mention the approach they used in the
study and they don’t present how they collect and analyze the data.
2. The writer don’t display how they find the result after they analyze
the data.
3. They don’t explain about the use of tense and pronoun more, since
the results show that third person simple present tense is dominant
structures used in the conversation.
4. Inadequate underpinning theories presented in the article, for
example the writers don’t presented about the function of Mood and
Modality because it is important element in analyzing interpersonal
metafunction.
5. They have met the purpose of their study, but unfortunately,
they give lack evidence in terms of the example or sentences
produced by students to support their argument.
6. Regarding the conclusion, the writers don’t give enough
explanations about the reasons why males produced higher
number clauses.
7. It would be better if the writers make every parts of article in
separated and different paragraph.
8. They should give suggestion and recommendation for the
implication in regards interpersonal metafunction in
classroom especially through conversation.
9. They don’t give explanation about terms interpersonal
metafunction and gender talk itself, and also they don’t
mention what kind of conversation happen in the classrooms.
Interpersonal Metafunction
“Interpersonally, the grammar is not a theory but a way of
doing; it is our construction of social relationships, both
those that define society and our own place in it, and those
that pertain to the immediate dialogic situation. This
constitutes the ―interpersonal metafunction, whereby
language constructs our social collective and, thereby, our
personal being” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999).
Conclusion
• The study from Araghi and Shayeghi in term of interpersonal
metafunction related to variant genders is really interesting
topic. Especially, how they focus on how different genders
produce language in Classroom. In my opinion it should have
more careful and further analysis in what way interpersonal
metafunction can causing high level of proficiency. Additionally,
for next researcher, it also necessary to analyze not only
between teacher and students, but also the conversation
among students because it must be different when students
talk to teacher and when they talk to their friends.
• There is a hole created by the writers because they don’t
describe how the gender talk reflects in the article, so they
necessarily should present about this in their article.
• Finally, I agree that the use of varieties of clausal structure will
enhance the conversation in the classroom.
• Does the cultural background of Arabic especially that
females are subordinate to male and this influence the
result of the research.

• How gender talk reflected in the article, and How did the
authors apply gender talk in the research,
• How did the author find the result after analyzing the data.