2025-10-10
When training students at a tertiary level, we expect them to develop into expert users of language (Byrnes et al., 2006). This implies they are able to deal with linguistic problems of both a theoretical and a practical nature (Martin, 2016). However, what is often missing in our teaching practices is a model of language that would offer them the tools to do so (Hasan, 1999; Martin, 2016). Traditionally, proficiency programmes seem primarily concerned with grammatical rules and vocabulary expansion (Macken-Horarik et al., 2015). This focus on decontextualized language downplays the primary goal of language: to communicate with another (Halliday, 2014; Hasan, 1999). In our English proficiency programme we have adopted a systemic functional model of language to inform the design of our courses (Halliday, 2014). As such, we focus on lexicogrammar from an ideational point of view offering a metalanguage to talk about language (i.e. grammatics rather than grammar rules (Halliday, 2002)) and we add to this an interpersonal approach to the instances of language use in writing and speaking classes. Students are taught to operationalize these two (ideational and interpersonal) exploiting textual resources. Together, these three components — ideational, interpersonal and textual choices — construe the variables of context of situation: field, tenor and mode respectively (Martin, 2016). Working with these variables, we maintain, gives students a solid theoretical foundation and understanding of the functioning of language, and allows them to effectively communicate a focused purpose in any genre relevant to our culture.
This article is framed in a research project called “Literature from a linguistic perspective: modelling and teaching of literary narrative genres and response genres” carried out within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). One of the aims of this project is to create a model of the generic macro-structure of the literary macro-genre short story to be used for teaching purposes. This model is developed on the basis of the existent categories of personal narratives (Plum 2004; Martin and Rose 2008; Salmaso 2014, 2017, 2021) and fairy tales (Hasan 1997) in SFL. This article presents the results of a qualitative analysis of the generic macro-structure of six short stories. It provides a generic macro-structure potential for literary macro-genre short story, the elementary genres that are inserted in the constituents of this macro-genre and the reasons why such genres are inserted where they are. This article also presents a series of activities based on the generic macro-structure potential of short stories proposed, which provide a more objective tool for the analysis and comprehension of certain aspects of this macro-genre, like its organisation into different constituents, their purpose and their contribution to the overall purpose of the macro-genre, showing that systematic analysis of this genre can foster students' reading comprehension. This paper is expected to make, on the one hand, a theoretical contribution to SFL through an initial modelling of the macro-genre short story and, on the other hand, a practical contribution to the teaching of English through literature.
This paper provides a description of the multimodal curriculum design and meaning making processes in what we call a Culturally Sustaining Systemic Functional Linguistics (CS SFL) praxis, developed in the context of an integrated youth and preservice teacher afterschool program. Informed by Halliday’s theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in this paper we pay special attention to the mode continuum in our interactive curriculum that we designed to support multi semiotic meaning making and creative re-mixing processes of youth engaged in relational and civic work. We first provide an explanation of the conceptual framework of CS SFL praxis and then illustrate the approach by drawing on data from our program over the course of two years.
Situated in a community-based summer enrichment program for multilingual, refugee-background youth, the purpose of the present self-study was to explore how teachers could draw upon systemic functional linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1978) to provide explicit attention to linguistic form and function (Lucas et al., 2008) in reading comprehension instruction. Data sources included video, audio, field notes, memos, and student artifacts. Through constant comparative methods and discourse analysis of instructional episodes, we found that the teacher’s knowledge of the SFL ideational metafunction informed how she scaffolded multilingual learners' co-construction of the “main idea” with two different informational texts (video and print). This study showcases how teachers can use their metalinguistic awareness and knowledge of SFL to amplify multilingual learners’ metalinguistic awareness, in the context of text-based discussions, to scaffold comprehension.
This paper explores the practice of using multimodal, digital assessment tasks assigned to students of an English for Architects and Civil Engineers course at a university in Germany. Students were tasked with creating multimodal video compositions and interviewed about the processes behind composing their artefacts. The goal was to interrogate to what extent multimodal assessment tasks such as these can promote the communication of technical concepts, facilitate nuanced opportunities for language development and develop the students as social agents. The artefacts were examined through the lens of Systemic Functional Semiotics, drawing particularly upon the Genre and Multimodality framework (Bateman et al., 2017; Bateman & Schmidt-Borcherding, 2018) and a recent approach to analysing multimodal artefacts developed by Turney & Jones (2021).
This study explores Theme and its presence in English L1 and L2 writing. Adopting the Hallidayan definition as a point of departure, Theme is characterised by its position and its orienting function. Drawing on Berry’s (2013) distinction between contentful and contentlight Subject Themes and Prince’s (1981) scale of assumed familiarity, the study works on a scale of contentfulness to classify thematic components according to semantic weight. The research aims to test the appli(c)ability of Theme and contentfulness in the process of teaching and learning English and assumes that greater awareness of the thematic structure of native English may benefit learners and teachers alike. The learner data are drawn from the Written Corpus of Learner English (WriCLE), and the English L1 control sample from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). The findings reveal the presence of significant differences between Themes produced by L1 and L2 writers, as well as significant connections between the L1-user/L2-user dichotomy and certain features of the thematic components in the essays analysed. The findings support the importance of introducing not only corpus literacy, but also notions such as Theme and contentfulness into the process of teaching and learning English L2.
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