The Didactics of Syntactic Rules from a Functional Perspective: From "Inflection as an End in Itself" to "Inflection in the Service of Meaning" in Communicative Discourse

Abstract

This study examines the didactics of syntactic rules in secondary-school Arabic education from a functional perspective, with particular attention to the relationship between grammatical form, meaning, context, and communicative purpose. It addresses the persistent gap between learners’ ability to identify grammatical functions and case markers in isolated sentences and their ability to mobilize grammatical knowledge in the comprehension and production of coherent communicative texts. The study adopts a descriptive, analytical, and critical approach. It first describes major features of the traditional formalist treatment of grammar, then analyzes selected grammatical activities and communicative text-based practices in secondary-school Arabic instruction, and critically examines the extent to which these practices connect grammatical structures with meaning and contextual use. The analysis is further informed by concepts drawn from functional linguistics, pragmatics, and text linguistics, particularly communicative competence, information structure, syntactic cohesion, reference, ellipsis, and the functional role of inflection.

The study argues that treating grammatical parsing primarily as an exercise in identifying formal markers may limit its communicative and interpretive value. From a functional perspective, inflection, constituent order, fronting and postponement, ellipsis, reference, and agreement can contribute to disambiguating meaning, organizing information, expressing communicative intentions, and establishing textual cohesion. On this basis, the study proposes a shift from sentence-centred grammar instruction towards text- and context-oriented practices in which grammatical analysis functions as a means of constructing and interpreting meaning. It recommends transforming grammar lessons into functional learning environments based on communicative situations, contextual analysis, textual reconstruction, comparative analysis, and guided text production.