Date: 11-Oct-2004 From: Susan Barker <Susan.Barkererlbaum.com> Subject: The Language of Schooling: Schleppegrell
Title: The Language of Schooling
Subtitle: A Functional Linguistics Perspective
Published: 2004
Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
http://www.erlbaum.com/
Author: Mary J. Schleppegrell, University of California, Davis
Hardback: ISBN: 080584676X Pages: 208 Price: U.S. $ 45.00
Paperback: ISBN: 0805846778 Pages: 208 Price: U.S. $ 19.95
Abstract:
This book is about how language is used in the context of schooling. It
demonstrates that the variety of English expected at school differs from
the interactional language that students use for social purposes outside of
school, and provides a linguistic analysis of the challenges of the school
curriculum, particularly for non-native speakers of English, speakers of
non-standard dialects, and students who have little exposure to academic
language outside of schools.
The Language of Schooling: A Functional Linguistics Perspective builds
on current sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic studies of language in
school, but adds a new dimension--the framework of functional linguistic
analysis. This framework focuses not just on the structure of words and
sentences, but on how texts are constructed--how particular grammatical
choices create meanings in the different kinds of texts students are asked
to read and write at school.
The Language of Schooling: A Functional Linguistics Perspective
*provides a functional description of the kinds of texts students are
expected to read and write at school;
*relates research from other sociolinguistic and language development
perspectives to research from the systemic functional linguistics perspective;
*focuses on the increasing linguistic demands of contexts of advanced
literacy (middle school through college);
*analyzes the genres typically encountered at school, with extensive
description of the grammatical features of the expository essay, a
gatekeeping genre for secondary school graduates;
*reviews the grammatical features of disciplinary genres in science and
history; and argues for more explicit attention to language in teaching all
subjects, with a particular focus on what is needed for the development of
critical literacy.
This book will enable researchers and students of language in education to
recognize how the grammatical and discourse features of the language of
schooling construct the content areas, role relationships, and purposes and
expectations of schools. It also will enable them to better understand the
nature of language itself and how it emerges from and helps to maintain
social structures and institutions, and to apply these understandings to
creating classroom environments that build on the strengths students bring
to school.
Linguistic Field(s):
Applied Linguistics
Discourse Analysis
Sociolinguistics
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