124094 VK BEd 09.2: VK Linguistics for Language Teachers (2018W)

This course provides an introduction into viewing, understanding, and analyzing language from a functional perspective. Among the different theoretical approaches to language, a functional perspective examines how language works to create meaning, that is, how people use language in specific contexts and how their language use is structured. In that sense, systemic functional linguistics is inherently meaning-based and focused on exploring how the linguistic choices we make affect and create particular meanings. The grammar of a language thus is seen not as end unto itself but rather as a resource for meaning making. By extension, learning grammar becomes a way of expanding one’s ability for making and interpreting meaning. Central to the study of systemic functional linguistics then is the recognizing the inextricable linkage between meaning and form.

Course structure:
To explore how meaning and form are inextricably linked, the course will examine how different grammatical categories function to create meanings. The categorization of grammar will follow a systemic-functional approach and focus first on the cultural (genre) and situational context (register) in which language use unfolds. Then, the grammatical features that are employed to express the different metafunctions of language will be studied (transitivity, mood, theme) in order to better understand how language is used to share ideas about experiences in the world (experiential metafunction), to make connections between these ideas (logical metafunction), to interact with others (interpersonal metafunction), and to construct coherent texts in written and spoken modes (textual metafunction). Weekly exercises will be completed to gain a better understanding of this approach to language use. Then, in the final third of the course, the focus will shift to application of functional linguistics to first and second language discourse analysis.

Course objectives:
By the end of this course participants will be able to
• explain how cultural and situational contexts affect language choice and use;
• conduct a genre-based analysis of texts;
• describe the linguistic resources used to express and connect ideas, interact with others, and create coherent texts;
• conduct a functional analysis of first and/or second language discourse

Students in the ‘Diplom-Lehramtsstudium UF Englisch’ may register for this course as ‘Freies Wahlfach’; however, you will be signed in after B.Ed. students (for whom this is a compulsory class) have been assigned places.