Unpacking Academic Language through Functional Language Analysis
As a biology teacher, I am well aware that this discipline requires secondary students to understand and develop a large repertoire of scientific terminology that may be completely novel to them. Along with this accumulation of technical vocabulary, students are also expected to understand complex concepts and relationships which are typically presented in densely packed language. In this respect, Fang & Schleppegrell’s (2010) suggestion for teachers to walk their students through academic language patterns specific to the discipline is effective in promoting student learning in the long run. In my future classroom I hope to incorporate periodic lessons focusing specifically on how to effectively read academic texts through using literacy exercises similar to the ones provided by Fang & Schleppegrell (2010).
In one of my undergraduate linguistic courses, we were introduced to Functional Language Analysis and initially, because the concept was foreign to us, we found it to be quite difficult. However, breaking the language down into workable pieces allows more efficient processing of information; once a student masters this procedure of breaking down dense text into small sections, he or she would be able to apply this technique across disciplines which would serve as a catalyst for further development in academic literacy.
Something I have found students struggle with in particular in understanding academic text is the use of synonyms or synonymic phrases to describe the same thing. Often these struggling students only need to be made aware that this is an academic technique used to avoid repetition and to introduce new vocabulary (usually in the form of a nominalization). If students are more aware of this pattern, they may be more conscious of these equivalent pieces of information when they read, allowing for more efficient information processing and organization.
Lucy Yang