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It might be argued that Homo loquens is a better description for our species than Homo sapiens, because our use of language is what distinguishes us from other animals. For a number of reasons, Grammar and Meaning: An Introduction for Primary Teachers is an ideal book for teachers and others who want to know more about how language works. Droga and Humphreys have produced a book well suited to the tastes of tertiary education students, in that it cleverly scaffolds the processes of learning new grammatical concepts and difficult linguistic terminology. It offers all teachers what they need both in terms of developing their knowledge of the English language and in terms of supporting their students’ use of it–a metalanguage for talking about language. The book would fit well in a first-year course because the knowledge about grammar is built in a cumulative way.

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The structure of this book is firm. The first three chapters provide the hors d’oeuvres and entree for the main dishes in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. And Chapter 7, like a good after-dinner speech, draws everything together to show how a knowledge of functional grammar can support ‘learning and language across the primary school and beyond.’ The first chapter, ‘A Social View of Language’, provides the foundation for the book with its easily digestible summary of the functions of language. The next two chapters build concepts of genre and sentence grammar.
The experiential, interpersonal and textual functions of grammar are established clearly in Chapter 1 to be taken up again in the central part of the book: Chapter 4 is entitled ‘Representing Experience’; Chapter 5, ‘Interacting with Others’; Chapter 6, ‘Creating Well Organised and Cohesive Texts’. The first chapter deepens its outline of language functions by relating the functions to field, mode and tenor. The words, ‘field’, ‘mode’ and ‘tenor’, are not mentioned at this stage in the book. Droga and Humphreys are always careful not to frighten the horses. Chapter 1 goes on to explain how different cultural, social, and educational contexts change the ways in which language is used. The chapter ends by examining the implications of viewing language as functional, developmental, and contextual. This first chapter will convince most primary and secondary teachers that Grammar and Meaning will provide them with the metalanguage they need to observe and describe the language they and their students hear and speak and read and write.
Chapter 2: Text Types, a Context for Exploring Grammar uses a range of school texts at different levels to show how and why different purposes require different genres. Structure and linguistic features of several genres are charted and explained with admirable simplicity. The chapter goes on to argue that children and young people can be taught to read and write more effectively if their teachers know how English grammar functions, because ‘Grammar is essential to the organisation of language and meaning.’ Having the metalanguage enables teachers to be explicit about what students need to do in order to read and write effectively in all subject areas. Chapter 3: Grammar and Organisation of Meaning, eases readers into sentence grammar by ‘building on traditional approaches to grammar’ to develop concepts and competencies at clause and sentence level. The authors rightly claim that traditional and formal approaches to grammar [tend] to focus on prescriptive rules about how we should use language rather than [seeing it] as a resource for achieving social purposes.’ While acknowledging that readers may be familiar with the term ‘parts of speech’ they get the reader on-side by claiming that the term ‘word classes’ is a better way to categorise nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc., because they are used in both spoken and written language. Word classes lead on to simple, compound and complex sentences. Softly, softly catchee monkey.
Suffice it to say, readers will enjoy the clarity of the explanation and the excellent choice of exemplary texts ranging from Harry Potter and the BFG through factual reports, narratives and descriptions written by children. Chapter 4 offers real nourishment for those who want to develop a language for talking about the English language. The feast includes: statements, questions, commands and exclamations; action verbs, saying verbs, sensing verbs and coupling verbs; adverbs of place, time, extent, manner, cause, accompaniment, contingency, role, angle and matter; determiners; adjectives and adjectivals of possession, quantity, opinion, fact and classification. Chapter 5 makes ‘I’ and ‘you’ and ‘it’ very exciting by using statements, questions, commands and exclamations; by showing degrees of definitiveness through modality; by sorting out vocabulary and sentence structures for affect, judgment and appreciation. This chapter shows how absolutely fundamental grammar is for self expression, successful social interaction, scientific proof and even for moral judgment. Chapter 6 deals with themes and new information. Rhemes might have scared off the punters. But the menu does include nominalisations, making connections through pronominal reference, ellipsis, substitution and lexical cohesion.