Advances In Language And Education

Description:
This book examines new functional approaches to language and education, and the impact of these on literacy in the classroom. The first section looks at issues of multimodality, in which the definition of a text is expanded to include not only that which is written down, but also the interaction of writing, graphics, and audiovisual material. The contributors explores ways in which language education can be expanded to deal with multimodal discourse, whether in children's books, in textbooks, or on the web. The second section looks at how critical discourse analysis and appraisal theory can be used as tools for assessing the effectiveness of student writing and literacy achievement, and also for helping developing writers to write more successfully. The final section argues that corpus-based studies of language have changed the way we see language, and that the way we teach language should evolve in line with these changes. This appealling survey of new directions in language and education includes contributions from internationally renowned scholars. It will be of interest to researchers in systemic functional linguistics, or language and education.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; Part I: Defining Multimodality; 1. 'Writing' or 'Text': thinking around 'Literacy' in contemporary representation and communication Gunther Kress; 2. Language and other semiotic systems in the organization of the written page Christian Matthiessen; 3. Muiltimodality, multimediality and multiliteracies - a new era for the press Eija Ventola; Part II: Multimodality and Education; 4. Children's picture book narratives Clare Painter; 5. Popular culture in the classroom Katina Zammit; 6. Multiliteracies for academic purposes Janet Jones; 7. Literacy, grammar and mathematics Kay O'Halloran; Part III: Literacy and New Approaches in Discourse Analysis; 8. Applying critical discourse analysis to literacy David Hyatt; 9. A study of decontextualization and literacy Inger Lassen. 10. Applying appraisal theory to literacy: propagating values in academic writing Susan Hood; 11. Appraisal in expository texts Elizabeth Swain; Part IV: Corpus Analysis and Literacy; 12. Views from corpus analysis: on the notion of expectation in language learning Gordon Tucker; 13. Corpora, pattern grammars and language education Susan Hunston; Part V: Literacy in a Multilingual World; 14. Language contact and multilinguality Erich Steiner.

Author Biography:
Dr Rachel Whittaker is a lecturer at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. Dr Mick O'Donnell is a Research Fellow at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Spain. Dr Anne McCabe is an Assistant Professor at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus, Spain where she is Head of the ESL programme.