Situated within the framework of the systemic-functional linguistics (Halliday, 1994) and language-based theory of learning (Halliday, 1993), this article examines a shift toward a more objectified and "scientific" representation of reality in texts written by foreign language (FL) learners at various levels of acquisition. It argues that linguistic variation in style impacting communicative effectiveness of written texts created by learners representing different levels of FL acquisition can be partly captured by means of grammatical metaphor, as a phenomenon of transcategorization, whereby processes (typically realized by verbs), attributes (typically realized by adjectives), or whole propositions (typically realized by sentences) are encoded as nouns. Based on a study conducted on 55 book reviews written by advanced American learners of German and 30 texts written by native speakers in the same genre, the article identifies various types of grammatical metaphors or approximations toward it as characteristic of various acquisition levels. It also demonstrates the role and functions of grammatical metaphor in enhancing the ability of writers to construct a logical argument or a persuasive evaluation. Comparisons to the use of grammatical metaphor in the texts produced by native writers of German show it to be a prominent feature of adult language use in literate and academic contexts, by native or nonnative language users. THIS ARTICLE SEEKS TO SINGLE OUT A KEY feature of advanced foreign language (FL) development in instructional settings and demonstrate variation in frequency and use of this feature in the discourse of advanced language users. It views advanced language learning as a process of literacy acquisition that can enable learners to use an FL beyond informal and mundane communication. Realization of advanced language abilities would then seem to be inseparable from involvement in public, particularly professionalThe Modern Language Journal, 94, ii, (2010) 0026-7902/10/181-197 $1.50/0 C 2010 The Modern Language Journal or academic spheres of social life. These spheres are primarily dominated by the conventions and practices of literate language use and characterized by the central role of written text for the construction of meaning in these settings, even when language use itself might be oral. In line with Halliday (1989), use of language in the written mode in academic or professional contexts represents and manifests a different and more complex type of meaning making. Whereas the ability to use language in oral everyday situations is acquired in the native language as a result of primary socialization into the society, expertise in written communication in the professional environment can be developed in the native language only as a result of schooling on the secondary and even
Adopting a functional perspective that views grammar as a rich resource for making contextualized meanings in a culture‐ and language‐specific way, the article reconsiders the role of explicit grammar instruction in developing communicative abilities of second language learners. It draws on two distinct but complementary research frameworks, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Cognitive Linguistics, and on their conceptualization of grammar as a semiotic tool that serves the functions it is called on to perform in a speech community and is shaped by a variety of historical, social, and biological factors. The article delineates pedagogical principles of functionally based grammar instruction and illustrates them by providing suggestions on how to teach two notoriously complex phenomena in German: clausal dative case and past tenses. It advocates presenting grammatical phenomena in the context of an entire text and creating a metalinguistic awareness that enables learners to make situationally appropriate linguistic choices consistent with those of native speakers.
This article reports on the ways of incorporating paintings, posters, and film into an advanced German content-and language-integrated course called Green Germany. It demonstrates how these visual media can be employed for enriching the exploration of various aspects of the course's environmental themes. In line with the research on the development of visual literacies (Cope & Kalantzis, 2009;Unsworth, 2006), the approach helps equip German learners with the tools to analyze the socially and culturally constructed nature of, in this instance, German public discourse on the environment, and thus develop their critical literacy abilities. In particular, it is demonstrated how leading learners towards interpretation of the visual media within a genre-based and systemic-functional framework (Halliday, 1994;Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996;Martin, 1985Martin, , 1997 facilitates critical distance from the solely referential information in these examples of public discourse. The article concludes with a brief examination of an analysis by one of the class participants, showing how she applies the proposed critical literacy tools. §
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