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AN Appropriate Model OF Language
BS Education (BSE 101)
Tarlac State University
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Key terms and concepts
functional model of language context of culture genres context of situation register ( eld, tenor, mode) the language system
Learning objectives
In this chapter, you will:
• begin to become familiar with a functional model
of language
• be introduced to the language system as a rich
network of resources for making meaning
• understand how the context in which language is
used impacts upon the kinds of choices made from the language system
• consider the implications of a functional model for
your own understanding of how language works and for your classroom practice.
Language is at the heart of the learning process. In order to succeed in school, students need to use language for such purposes as explaining, arguing, recounting, and describing across a range of subject areas in a variety of media and modes. Such language does not come naturally to most students and generally requires explicit teaching. This means that teachers themselves need to have a solid understanding of how language operates in academic contexts. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case. In an attempt to address this, the Australian Curriculum: English includes an explicit knowledge about language as a major focus. This chapter will begin to introduce the functional model of language that informs the national curriculum.
AN APPROPRIATE MODEL OF LANGUAGE
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CHAPTER 1: An Appropriate Model of Language 3
Note: throughout the chapters you will be invited to ‘have a go’ at certain activities. ese can be done either by yourself or in pairs/groups.
INTRODUCTION
The Australian Curriculum: English places a major emphasis on ‘knowledge about language’, along with an appreciation of literature and expanding repertoires of literacy use. In the Framing Paper that guided the development of the national English curriculum, the following objectives were outlined:
All students need to develop their understanding of how language functions to achieve a range of purposes that are critical to success in school. This includes reading, understanding, and writing texts that describe, narrate, analyse, explain, recount, argue, review, and so on. Such an approach aims to:
- extend students’ language resources in ways that support increasingly complex learning throughout the school years
- help students deal with the language demands of the various curriculum areas
- enable students to move from the interactive spontaneity of oral language towards the denser, more crafted language of the written mode
- help students, in their speaking and writing, to move to and fro between the general and the speci c, the abstract and the concrete, and the argument and the evidence
- generally raise students’ awareness of interpersonal issues, such as how to take and support a stand in an argument, how to express considered opinions, how to strengthen or soften statements, how to interact with a variety of audiences, and so on (DEEWR 2008, p. 10). In Australia, teachers have been using a functional approach to language for the past couple of decades to address the above aspirations. Such an approach is concerned with how language functions to make the kinds of meanings that are important in our daily lives, in school learning, and in the wider community.
A functional model of language draws on the work of Professor Michael Halliday (see, for example, Halliday 2009), one of the leading linguists of modern times. Halliday sees language as a meaning- making system through which we interactively shape and interpret our world and ourselves. His interest is in language as ‘a resource for making meaning’. Based on the work of Halliday, educational linguists such as Martin (1985) and Christie (2005) developed a ‘genre-based approach’ with the goal of making the language demands of the curriculum explicit so that all students have access to the linguistic resources needed for success in school and to the powerful ways of using language in our culture.
In this book, you will be learning about language and how it works from a functional perspective so that you can better support your students to learn language, to learn through language, and to learn about language.
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CHAPTER 1: An Appropriate Model of Language 5
about a faulty piece of equipment bought for the school. In a subsequent phone call, however, the purpose might change to an apology as you nd out that in fact the equipment has been installed incorrectly. With the shi in context, the language choices will also change in terms of the purpose (complaint versus apology), the topic (the faulty equipment versus the faulty installation), the relationship (aggrieved versus contrite), and the mode of communication (email versus telephone).
Have a go!
From the above scenario, try to predict the kind of language choices made in the initial email exchange as opposed to the choices made in the telephone conversation. How do they differ?
Similarly, the language system as a whole is in a constant state of ux, impacted by the ways people use language in creative and unusual ways.
REGISTER
According to Halliday, in any particular situation there are three key factors in the context that affect the choices we make from the language system: the eld, the tenor, and the mode.
e eld refers to the content or subject matter. In a school context, our language choices will vary depending on such matters as the curriculum area and the topic being studied. e language choices we make in science, for example, will be quite different from those made in history. e topic of crystallisation will employ quite different language features from the topic of life in ancient Rome.
e tenor refers to the roles we take up (student, parent, customer, employee) and our relationships with others in any particular situation. e tenor will be affected by such matters as the status, level of expertise, age, ethnic background, and gender of the participants. Language choices will vary according to such factors as how well people know each other, how frequently they meet, and how they feel about each other. If you are having a conversation with a close friend with whom you meet regularly, the choices will be quite different from a tutorial session with a senior lecturer and a group of students you hardly know.
e mode refers to the channel of communication being used: the mode and the medium. Here, we are primarily concerned with the difference between the spoken mode and the written mode and the different roles these play in the learning process. is is an important consideration as students move from the oral language of the home and schoolyard to the increasingly dense and compact language of the written mode in academic contexts. Mode can also refer to visual and multimodal texts presented through a range of media.
eld: the subject matter or topic being developed in a particular situation.
tenor: the roles and relationships being enacted in a particular situation.
mode: the channel of communication being used in a particular situation (e. oral, written, visual).
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6 PART 1: Language and Learning
Any combination of these contextual features creates the register of a situation (see Figure 1). In one situation we might nd a couple of old friends (tenor) discussing (oral mode) their holiday plans ( eld). In another situation, we might imagine a teacher and principal (tenor) corresponding through emails (written mode) about the agenda for the staff meeting ( eld). As you can imagine, the language choices will differ considerably depending on the register.
register: a combination of the eld, tenor, and mode in a particular situation.
Field
Tenor
Mode
LANGUAGESYSTEM
Context of situation (register)
W ‘ (
’ t a h a h s
e p p
g n i n ? ’)
( ‘ Wh
o i s i
n v o l
v e d ’ )
( ‘ C h a n n e l o f c om m unica ti o n? ’ )
Figure 1 The register ( eld, tenor, and mode) of a particular situation
Have a go!
From the text below, see if you can infer the register (the eld, the tenor, and the mode). What are some key language features that enabled you to do this? All students who have been sent to detention this week will meet me here after assembly. There has been an unacceptable increase in the number of students turning up late for class and disobeying school rules. If you break the rules, there will be consequences. And you all know what they are!
Being able to identify the register of a situation enables us to predict the kind of language our students will need to use in that situation. If we are planning a particular geography lesson, for example, our students might need support in using language to explain the movement of tectonic plates ( eld) to an unknown audience (tenor) in the written mode (mode).
Part 2 of this book will introduce you more fully to a range of academic registers.
context of situation: a speci c situation within a culture that gives rise to a particular register.
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8 PART 1: Language and Learning
For some time, the most widespread use of the term ‘genre’ has been in association with particular kinds of literature (later extended to include works of art and lm). us works of literature of a particular style were referred to as genres of one variety or another: the elegy, the sonnet, the ballad, the romance genre, the pastoral genre, the gothic horror genre, the science ction genre, and so on. e meaning of the term has been extended these days to include non-literary texts— texts from the community (casual conversation, patient–doctor consultations, shopping lists), from the media (editorials, news bulletins, television documentaries), from the workplace (business reports, oce memos, safety warnings), and from educational contexts (book reviews, classroom interaction, lab reports). As you can see, genres can be spoken, written, or multimodal (integrating visual elements with written text). In this book, the terms ‘genre’ and ‘text type’ will be used interchangeably to refer to ways of achieving a speci c social purpose through language within a particular cultural context. In school contexts, we encounter a range of genres over which students need to gain control in order to succeed in their academic lives (see Table 1). In this book, we will be introducing some of the key genres of schooling.
Table 1 Examples of genres typically used in school contexts
Purpose Genre (text type) Examples To entertain (Chapter 4) Stories Reading a narrative Sharing an Anecdote Innovating on a fable To tell what happened (Chapter 5)
Recounts Recounting the results of a science experiment Recounting an historical event Recounting how a maths problem was solved To provide information about a general class of things (Chapter 6)
Information reports Types of transport The feline family Rainforests To explain how things work or why things happen (Chapter 7)
Explanations How an electric circuit works What causes earthquakes How the Second World War began To argue (Chapter 8) Arguments/expositions Essay developing a particular stance Discussion considering various sides of an issue Formal debate
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CHAPTER 1: An Appropriate Model of Language 9
As we can see from Table 1, virtually all the activities in which students participate involve the use of particular genres. If we are clear about the purposes that students will be expected to achieve in a unit of work, then we can better support them in learning how to use relevant genres.
Purpose Genre (text type) Examples To respond (Chapter 9) Responses Responding personally to a text or artform Interpreting a text, artform, or body of work To conduct an inquiry (Chapter 10)
Inquiry reports (macrogenre)
A science experiment A geography project A technology and design assignment A problem-solving inquiry
Have a go!
Just by looking at the opening lines of a text, we can usually infer the genre being used. From the following, see if you can predict the likely genre. (Hint: Think about the likely purpose of the text.) What is it in the language choices that enable you to identify the genre?
Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia.
Do this science experiment to learn about the chemical reaction that makes sherbet so zzy when you put it in your mouth.
There are many reasons why new laws should be introduced to make organic farming techniques compulsory for all Australian growers.
The plants in our school vegetable garden are looking unhealthy.
On Tuesday 3A went to the animal sanctuary to observe the wildlife.
Erosion is the result of several factors.
Each genre has a characteristic structure and goes through a number of stages to achieve its purpose. e various stages are generally ordered in a relatively predictable way (see Table 1). In a recount of an incident, for example, we typically nd a stage at the beginning that lets us know who was involved, when and where it took place, and so on. is is generally followed by a description of the sequence of events. And nally, another stage might conclude the recount—a summarising comment, for example.
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AN Appropriate Model OF Language
Course: BS Education (BSE 101)
University: Tarlac State University
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