d. nyberg

Thought this would be helpful for language teachers/learners or storytellers and songwriters...Essentiallly anything you (or your charector)  say will come from one of the 5 colored catagories

 

Functional Categories of Language - Mary Finocchiaro

Personal, interpersonal, directive, referential,

and imaginative.

Personal = Clarifying or arranging one’s ideas.

Expressing one’s thoughts or feelings: love, joy, pleasure, happiness, surprise, likes, satisfaction, dislikes, disappointment, distress, pain, anger, anguish, fear, anxiety,sorrow, frustration, annoyance at missed opportunities.

Moral, Intellectual and Social concerns;Everyday feelings of hunger, thirst, fatigue, sleepiness, cold, or warmth.

Interpersonal = Enabling us to establish and maintain desirable social and working relationships:

greetings and leave takings,

introducing people to others,

identifying oneself to others,

expressing joy at another’s success,

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,

offering food or drinks and accepting or declining politely,

sharing wishes, hopes, desires, problems,

making promises and committing oneself to some action,

complimenting someone,

making excuses,

expressing and acknowledging gratitude

Directive = Attempting to influence the actions of others;

accepting or refusing direction:

making suggestions in which the speaker is included,

making requests;

making suggestions refusing to accept a suggestion or a request but offering an alternative

persuading someone to change his point of view,

requesting and granting permission,

asking for help and responding to a plea for help,

forbidding someone to do something;

issuing a command giving and responding to instructions,

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:

Talking or reporting about things, actions, events, or people in the environment in the past or in the future;

talking about language identifying items or people,

asking for a description of someone or something,

defining something or a language item or asking for a definition paraphrasing, summarizing, or translating 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,

evaluating the results of an action or event

Imaginative = Discussions involving elements of creativity and artistic expression,

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

expanding ideas suggested by other or by a piece of literature or reading material,

creating rhymes, poetry, stories or plays,

recombining familiar dialogs or passages creatively,

suggesting original beginnings or endings to dialogs or stories,

solving problems or mysteries 

 

So there ya have it:

Everything and anything anyone ever said, or will say; ever. Much obliged.