PAB #2 “Systemic Functional Linguistics and a Theory of Language in Education” Frances Christie

Christie, Frances. “Systemic Functional Linguistics and a Theory of Language in Education.”

Christie examines how systemic functional linguistics (SFL), specifically the theories of academic register and genre, can be applied to the teaching of language in educational contexts. In SFL, there is no “clearcut distinction between theoretical and applied interests” (13). Instead, the relationship between theory and application can be seen as a “dialogue between theoretical questions and applied questions” (13). SFL is often used to solve specific problems, such as developing an inventory of the most common genres in which students write, as well as the linguistic and sociocultural features which make up genres.

3 Types of Language Teaching

Halliday, McIntosh, and Stevens identified three types of language instruction:

  • Prescriptive– Rules-based. Teaching students the “preferred” academic conventions.
  • Descriptive– The description of one’s native language, including informal language, dialects, etc.
  • Productive– Extending students’ capacity to make meaning with their language.

 

Register: Field, Tenor, and Mode

Field Tenor Mode

Fig. 1 A Multi-Functional View of Register and Genre

Halliday hypothesized that a register is a variety of language in use consisting of three variables – field, tenor, and mode.

  • Field– The activity language is being used to talk about.
  • Tenor– The social relationships between participants in a text.
  • Mode– The medium or mode of communication.

 

During the 70s and 80s, Halliday refined the theory of register to explain “the relationship of linguistic choices to the register variables,” which he termed the three metafunctions, the theory that all language enacts three different kinds of meaning:

  • Experiential– The experiences represented in language.
  • Interpersonal- The relationships between reader and text, as well as the social relationship between participants in a text.
  • Textual– The organization and arrangement of a text.

 

As depicted in fig. 1, the variables of register correspond to the three metafunctions. Field relates to the experiential metafunction, tenor relates to the interpersonal metafunction, and mode relates to the textual metafunction.

Register and Genre: Context of Situation and Context of Culture

J.R. Martin and other researchers extended Halliday’s theory of register into a full-blown theory of genre, while documenting text types students were required to write in Australian schools. Taking Malinowski’s theories of context of situation and context of culture, Martin was able to distinguish between register, the context of a specific situation, and genre, the context of culture. Martin “argued firstly that any text involved a set of linguistic choices with respect to field, tenor, and mode, and that these were a condition of the context of situation, and secondly, that the text was in turn an instance of a particular genre, where the genre choice was a condition of the context of culture” (23). The big distinction here is that Martin found text types could share the same variable of field, tenor, and mode, “yet nonetheless produce different genres” (23). Register is shaped by the contextual variables present in a given situation, while genre is shaped by the broader social resources of an entire culture.

Putting It All Together: Register and Genre in English Studies

Wow, that was a lot of theory! So what can register and genre do for English Studies?

  • One, as English Studies becomes more concerned with discourse and situating language within social context, register and genre provide functional and systematic ways for modeling social context on two levels: the instance (or immediate situation) and the culture.
  • The theory of register has the potential to bridge the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) divide, as all disciplines use an academic register, valuing different variations of field, tenor, and mode. For instance, looking at “voice,” science favors third person, while creative writing may favor first person. If students were taught the concept of register, they would most likely have little difficulty navigating different configurations of academic register.
  • Although there has been somewhat extensive cataloging of the most popular genres students write in K-12 education, primarily in Australia, colleges in the U.S. could benefit from an investigation into genre types. The Genre Project by The University of North Carolina Writing Program has been doing notable research into the most prevalent genres in first-year composition. The inforgraphic below (see fig. 2) shows the research essay is the most popular genre in fyc, followed by narrative and descriptive essays.

 

fyc-genres-bubble-300x227

Fig. 2 Genres in FYC

  • As regards to educational theory, SFL fosters three key pedagogical characteristics: learning language, learning through language, and learning about language (18). Additionally, this approach raises teachers’ meta-awareness of language within their disciplines.
  • I have tried to incorporate genre-based approaches in my teaching by providing sample writing of the target genre, talking explicitly about the linguistic features of genres, and utilizing the teaching-learning cycle – deconstruction, joint construction, independent construction.

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