ABSTRACT
Functional approaches have as their main interest the study of how language functions. Functional approaches generally entail a consideration of multiple areas of language, such as tense–aspect, which combines verb meanings, morphological form, and phonology. This chapter turns to how language is used for communication purposes, with an emphasis on meaning. The major concern is how different forms are used to express different functions, in other words, how form and function relate to one another. The chapter considers isolated parts of language e.g., syntax, morphology, because functional approaches consider meaning as central, many aspects of language, including pragmatics, semantics, syntax, morphology, and the lexicon are taken into account simultaneously. The concept-oriented approach starts with the assumption that learners have the need to express a given concept—for example, an event in the past—in which the investigation begins with the identification of one function or concept or meaning and follows the way it is expressed through development.
