The Language of Schooling: a Functional Linguistics Perspective

THE LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLING A Functional Linguistics Perspective GI GI THE LANGUAGE OF SCHOOLING A Functional Linguistics Perspective Mary J. Schleppegrell University of California, Davis LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2004 Mahwah, New Jersey London GI This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright Ó 2004 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schleppegrell, Mary J., 1950– The language of schooling : a functional linguistics perspective / Mary J. Schleppegrell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8058-4676-X (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8058-4677-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Language and education. 2. Functionalism (Linguistics). I. Title. P40.8.S358 2004 410¢.1¢8—dc22 2003061250 CIP ISBN 1-4106-1031-4 Master e-book ISBN GI Contents Tables vii Preface ix 1 Characterizing the Language of Schooling 1 The Linguistic Context of Schooling 3 The Challenges of “Literate” Language 5 A Functional Theory of Language 17 Conclusion 19 2 Language and Context 21 Life Experience and Language Development 24 Language in School Tasks 33 Language and Success at School 39 Conclusion 40 3 Linguistic Features of Academic Registers 43 Grammar as a Meaning-Making Resource 45 Linguistic Choices Realize Social Contexts 49 Conclusion 75 4 Writing School Genres 77 Grammar and Writing Development 78 v GI vi CONTENTS Genres of Schooling 82 Expository Essays 88 Conclusion 111 5 Functional Grammar in School Subjects 113 Making Meaning in Science and History 114 The Functionality of Academic Registers 137 The Challenges of Academic Registers 142 Conclusion 144 6 Language Development in School 147 Issues in Language Pedagogy 148 Learning the Language of Schooling 152 Grammar as Resource for Learning 156 Language, Knowledge, and Ideology 161 Conclusion 163 References 167 Author Index 181 Subject Index 185 GI Tables Table 1.1 Features of Snow’s “Decontextualized Language” Table 3.1 Grammar and the Context of Situation Table 3.2 Processes in Functional Grammar Table 3.3 Process Types in Two Texts Table 3.4 Lexical Density in Two Texts Table 3.5 Clause Themes in Two Texts Table 3.6 Themes and Subjects in Two Texts Table 3.7 Register Features of the Language of Schooling Table 4.1 Some Genres of Schooling Table 4.2 Theme/Rheme Analysis of Student Essay Introduction Table 4.3 Grammatical Features Functional for Expository Writing Table 4.4 Theme/Rheme Analysis of Text (11) Table 4.5 Theme/Rheme Analysis of Text (16) Table 5.1 Common Genres in Science Education vii GI viii TABLES Table 5.2 Register Features in Science Discourse: Resources for Theorizing Experience Table 5.3 Common Genres in History Education Table 5.4 Register Features in History Discourse: Resources for Interpreting Experience Table 5.5 Process Types in the Missouri Compromise Text GI Preface This book explores the linguistic features of the language students need to learn for success at school. The variety of English expected at school differs from the interactional language that students draw on for social purposes outside of school, and this book relates the grammatical and discourse features of the language expected in school tasks to the content areas, role relationships, and purposes and expectations that they realize in schooling contexts. A functional grammatical analysis reveals the challenges that the “language of schooling” (Schleppegrell, 2001) presents to students unfamiliar with this variety, including nonnative speakers of English, speakers of nonstandard dialects, and other students with lit- tle exposure to academic contexts outside of school. Children encounter the language of schooling even in the early years of formal education, and this book demonstrates how the features of this language are functional for construing knowledge in various school subjects in the later years. The book builds on frequently cited sociolinguistic, applied linguistic, and discourse-analytic studies of language in school, but interprets these from a functional linguistics perspective, describing the linguistic demands of schooling in ways that illuminate how particular grammatical choices make meanings in the texts students are asked to read and write at school. Functional grammar is different from traditional school grammar in focusing on language as a meaning- making resource rather than as a set of rules, and in recognizing the link between the linguistic choices of speakers and writers and the contexts those linguistic choices help realize. This book is intended for use in teacher education, especially for teachers of middle, secondary, and postsecondary students and teachers of composition, as well as by researchers in language development and education and scholars with a ix GI x PREFACE general interest in language issues in education. It provides support for researchers and teachers to give more explicit attention to how different grammatical and discourse organizational choices result in different kinds of texts that are valued in different ways. A better understanding of the linguistic challenges of schooling can help us develop more productive strategies for working with students and open up new avenues of fruitful collaboration between linguists and educators. We can also become more conscious of the real content of schooling and the school’s expectations regarding what children should be able to do with language. This can move us toward a classroom environment that builds on the strengths children bring to school and assists them in gaining control of the linguistic resources that are powerful for maintaining or challenging the current social and educational order. In addition, understanding how language structures knowledge in school contexts can give us a better understanding of the nature of language itself. Thirty years ago, Hymes (1972) proposed an agenda for classroom-based research on language that stimulated a generation of fruitful inquiry. In introducing a book that focused attention on the social and cultural aspects of language use, he reacted to a linguistics that at that time generally ignored context in the study of language. He urged researchers to focus on situated meanings from the point of view of the participants, taking into account the contexts in which speech events occur. Many ground-breaking ethnographic studies followed this call for a classroom-based research agenda on language, describing the kinds of tasks, participa- tion structures, and speech and literacy events that make up the typical school experience (for overviews see Cazden, 1986, 1988). At the same time that Hymes urged this agenda for classroom research, he pointed out that eventually it would be necessary to go beyond separate analyses of linguistic structure and social context to develop a model that incorporates both. In his words, “. an adequate theory of the functioning of language would not ‘start’ from either language or context, but would systematically relate the two within a single model” (Hymes, 1972, p. xix). With the publication of Halli- day’s functional grammar (Halliday, 1985, 1994), a theory of linguistic structure that does just this became available to researchers, making possible the study of the principled relationship between context and language structure. This book draws on the findings of many important studies done within that framework. Studies of language in social context that use discourse analysis, variation analysis, or ethnographic approaches, typically do not draw on linguistic theories to inform their focus on linguistic constructs. As a theory of grammar, Halliday’s functional linguistics offers a way of thinking about the relationship between the linguistic choices of speakers and writers in particular moments of interaction and the social contexts that the language helps realize. Of course context is real- ized in more than language; multiple semiotic systems are always at play in any social interaction. But language itself is a semiotic system of great importance, GI PREFACE xi and a common framework for analyzing grammar can be a powerful tool to enrich studies from different methodological perspectives. OVERVIEW Chapter 1 reviews research that has characterized “literate” language as explicit, decontextualized, complex, and cognitively demanding. Thinking about the challenges students face in using language at school in terms of these constructs con- ceives of the challenges of advanced literacy in ways that privilege cognitive factors and downplay the social and cultural factors that contribute to students’ ability to use academic language. This discussion sets the stage for analyzing language in the functional ways that are developed in later chapters. Chapter 2 shows how the school context differs from the home context of language use for many children and describes the ways in which socialization processes prepare some children, but not others, for the linguistic challenges of schooling.

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