Abstract

This volume, "Language as Purposeful: Functional Varieties of Texts", is the third of the first three e-books of a new series entitled, "Functional Grammar Studies for Non-Native Speakers of English", which is contained within the superordinate: "Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC)", a research center in the Department of Modern Foreign Languages of the University of Bologna. The series proposes a metalinguistic description of English grammar in a functional, socio-semiotic perspective and is proving to be an effective teaching/learning resource for improving English literacy in the L2 pedagogic setting. The principal ‘consumers’ of the series are the students of the English Language Studies Program (ELSP) in Bologna’s Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, for whom it provides the basic course-book in each of their three years of the first-level degree course. This third volume applies the descriptive model taught in the first two years to the analysis of diverse text-types, and thus at the same time seeks to empower students through an increasing awareness of the typical functions of the English language in a variety of concrete situational and cultural contexts.