Caroline Coffin

Learning the language of school history: the role of linguistics in mapping the writing demands of the secondary school curriculum

This study uses the tools of functional linguistics to illuminate the writing requirements of the history curriculum in the context of Australian secondary schools. It shows how the resulting linguistic description was integrated into a sequence of teaching and learning activities through collaboration between linguists and content/pedagogic specialists. These activities were designed to improve students’ writing skills while simultaneously developing their historical knowledge. An independent evaluation of the approach pointed to positive changes in teachers’ attitudes and behaviours regarding the role of language in learning history. Students’ writing improved, particularly in terms of its organization and structure.

Analysing English in a global context : a reader

Introduction 1. English in the World : Change and variety 2. Analysing English : A text perspective 3. How do you analyse language : A clause perspective 4. The globalisation of English : Opportunities and constraints for users and learners

Learning to Write History The Role of Causality

Historians generally agree that causality is central to historical writing. The fact that many school history students have difficulty handling and expressing causal relations is therefore of concern. That is, whereas historians tend to favor impersonal, abstract structures as providing suitable explanations for historical events and states of affairs, students often focus on human “wants and desires.” The author argues that linguistic analysis can offer powerful insights into how successful students use grammar and vocabulary to build different types of causal explanations as they move through secondary schooling. In particular, the author shows how functionally oriented linguistic analysis makes it possible to discriminate between “narrative” and “analytical” explanations, to distinguish between “enabling” and “determining” types of causality, and to reveal the value of assessing degrees of causal impact.

Engaging Electronically: Using CMC to Develop Students' Argumentation Skills in Higher Education.

The study reported on here explores the claim that computer conferencing is a valuable environment for students to rehearse academic debates and arguments which can then be drawn on in their written assignments. In order to carry out the exploration, the functional linguistic concept of ENGAGEMENT was employed. ENGAGEMENT comprises six sets of distinct linguistic resources that have been identified in the literature as playing an important role in the negotiation of ideas and attitudes. We compared the use of ENGAGEMENT across two different computer conference groups each employing a different style of tutoring as well as across the two different media (electronic conference discussions and individually written essays). By drawing on these sub-categories we were able to quantify the proportions of each type of resource used and so obtain evidence of students’ use of a particular set of argumentation skills, namely the way in which they engage with, and exchange, a range of perspectives on an issue. The pedagogic implications of these findings are discussed.

Multimodality, Orchestration and Participation in the Context of Classroom Use of the Interactive Whiteboard: A Discussion

This paper will offer a discussion of the literature concerning multimodality, orchestration and participation related to classroom use of the interactive whiteboard (IWB). Specifically, it will explore the place, or potential use, of the IWB to resource a multimodal approach to teaching and learning, emphasising the complex connections that need acknowledging when viewing the IWB in context. Comments on the IWB’s effectiveness or otherwise, however, are beyond the scope of this paper. Conceptions of the role of language in mediating other modes and media, in terms of its centrality or complementarity, will necessarily be addressed by considering activities such as classroom talk aligned to other resources. The role of various actors (including teachers and learners) in designing, orchestrating and interpreting multimodal material will be considered. Whilst recognising the substantial debate regarding multimodality as an analytic lens, the discussion will focus on multimodality in terms of materials used in the classroom.

Finding the global groove: theorising and analysing dynamic reader positioning using APPRAISAL, corpus and a concordancer

Within critical discourse analysis (CDA), there has been ongoing interest in how texts position readers to view social and political events in a particular way. Traditionally, analysts have not examined how positioning is built up dynamically as a reader progresses through a text by tracing how earlier parts of a text are likely to affect subsequent interpretation. This article shows how APPRAISAL tools (as developed within the systemic functional tradition) can be usefully employed within CDA to do this. Using a story from The Sun newspaper website as illustration, we show how due to a cumulative groove of semantic patterning, the reader is dynamically positioned to interpret a seemingly neutral statement at the end of the story in a negative way. We ‘over-interpretation’ can be checked through the use of a concordancer. We also demonstrate how a specialised corpus can go some way to grounding the APPRAISAL analysis in terms of the context of the target readership and the meanings they are routinely exposed to. This we argue facilitates an explanatory critique of the way in which a text is likely to be understood by its target readership in relation to the socio-political-economic context.

Using exchange structure analysis to explore argument in text‐based computer conferences

Computer conferencing provides a new site for students to develop and rehearse argumentation skills, but much remains to be learnt about how to encourage and support students in this environment. Asynchronous text‐based discussion differs in significant ways from face‐to‐face discussion, creating a need for specially designed schemes for analysis. This paper discusses some of the problems of analysing asynchronous argumentation, and puts forward an analytical framework based on exchange structure analysis, which brings a linguistic perspective to bear on the interaction. Key features of the framework are attention to both interactive and ideational aspects of the discussion, and the ability to track the dynamic construction of argument content. The paper outlines the framework itself, and discusses some of the findings afforded by this type of analysis, and its limitations.

Exchanging and countering points of view: a linguistic perspective on school students' use of electronic conferencing

The ability to argue is an important academic goal in secondary education. This paper reports on an exploratory study which investigated how asynchronous text-based conferencing provides a new site for school students to rehearse and develop their skills in argumentation. The study used linguistic tools of analysis to investigate two key questions: • How is argumentation structured in asynchronous text-based conferencing? • How do students use language to negotiate their position on an issue? The originality of our study lies in the use of a functional linguistic method of analysis which provides unique insights into how students use language to argue, insights that can inform teaching and learning both in school history (the context for this paper) and more generally. Our interest in language is based on the premise that it is central to the learning process – a premise supported by work in socio-cultural psychology and systemic functional linguistics. The most significant findings to emerge from the analysis were that (1) counter-argumentation was rare; and (2b) the more tentatively a claim is phrased the more likely it is that students will challenge or counter it.

Using systemic functional linguistics to explore digital technologies in educational contexts

Abstract Over the last decade, technological innovation has led to new pedagogic sites, such as online discussion forums and virtual 3D worlds. In these sites students and teachers use language and other meaning-making resources to engage in educational argumentation. However, there have been few studies which have systematically explored the role of lexicogrammatical and other semiotic resources in the making of meaning in these contexts. This is because the main body of research underpinning claims around the affordances and limits of online argumentation is located within sociocognitive paradigms. By drawing on the tools of systemic functional linguistics and, where relevant, systemic functional-multimodal analysis, this article therefore offers a fresh perspective. I show how such tools can illuminate both the overarching textual shape and structure of online discussion forums and the ways in which meanings are made through language and other semiotic resources.