6.3 SFL for Critical Reading
A powerful tool for fostering critical language awareness comes from systemic functional linguistics (SFL). As discussed in Chapter 2, SFL is a theory of meaning that explicates how language choices reflect and shape the context in which meaning is being exchanged. It views language as a semiotic system of choices that simultaneously makes three types of meaning: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual. The ideational meaning refers to what is being talked about. The textual meaning refers to the way language is stitched together to convey a coherent message. The interpersonal meaning refers to the social relationships enacted in the text. A systematic approach to exploring these meanings is functional grammar analysis, described in Chapter 3. Functional grammar analysis promotes in-depth text discussion that helps students develop insights into and appreciation for the myriad ways language works to construct meanings across disciplines and contexts. It provides teachers with a set of tools for engaging students in analyzing how language choices simultaneously present and develop ideas (ideational meaning), organize these ideas into a coherent whole (textual meaning), and infuse points of view (interpersonal meaning) in a text.
Although an explicit understanding of how language is used to construe and communicate any of these meanings constitutes critical language awareness, it is the interpersonal meaning that often becomes the focus of attention in the discussion of critical literacy. This focus is facilitated in part by the popularity of appraisal analysis (Martin & White, 2005), a more recent development in SFL that makes systematic exploration of interpersonal meaning possible. As described in Chapter 2, appraisal is a resource for construing authorial voice such as feelings, values, tastes, identities, and personae. It is concerned with "the subjective presence of writers/speakers in texts as they adopt stances towards both the material they present and those with whom they communicate" (Martin & White, 2005, p. 1). Appraisal consists of three interacting domains: attitude, engagement, and graduation. Attitudinal resources enable writers to express emotions (affect), judge people's character (judgment), and assess the value of things (appreciation). Engagement resources enable writers to project and introduce the sources of attitudes in the text. Graduation resources enable writers to amplify or reduce the force of attitudes as well as sharpen or soften the focus of attitudes. These three domains of appraisal resources are often exploited by science and other disciplinary writers as they present information and develop argument in a way that fits into the structures of power that characterize a particular situation of communication in a particular discourse community.
Appraisal analysis directs students to the lexical and grammatical patterns in the text and engages them in discussion about "the kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text, the strength of the feelings involved, and the ways in which values are sourced and readers aligned" (Martin & Rose, 2003, p. 22). Teachers can promote critical language awareness by having students examine how language choices in a text express affect (positive/negative or direct/indirect feelings); render judgment on people's character in terms of personal, social, or moral admiration or criticism; or evaluate the worth of things. They can engage students in discussion about how the author uses gradable terms (e.g., extremely, somewhat) to strengthen or weaken those attitudes, whether those attitudes come from one source (monogloss) or multiple sources (heterogloss), and how the sources are introduced in the text (e.g., through direct or indirect speech, concessive conjunctions, or modality that expresses degrees of probability and obligation). These analyses help students uncover the hidden messages in the text, gain a more nuanced understanding of the authorial perspective, and expand their linguistic repertoires for making meaning in more purposeful and effective ways.
An emerging body of research has described how SFL tools can be used to support critical literacy development in K-12 classrooms. For example, O'Hallaron, Palincsar, and Schleppegrell (2015) engaged elementary school language arts teachers and their English language learners in exploring the notion of "author attitude" in science texts. Using the metalanguage of SFL, the researchers introduced the notion that science texts, though seemingly devoid of interpersonal meaning, are infused with authorial judgment and value. They spotlighted linguistic features — such as interpersonal adjuncts (e.g., fortunately), first and second pronouns (e.g., We can see that …), and imperatives (e.g., You will need to …) — that present authorial perspective in texts. They suggested that the key to developing critical language awareness was helping students and teachers recognize that language use is motivated. Symons (2017) reported how identifying argumentative language features such as usuality and likelihood successfully helped fourth-grade emergent bilinguals develop skills in evaluating evidence in informational texts. Gebhard and Graham (2018) analyzed how middle school students developed a critical awareness of language while participating in a curriculum unit designed to promote environmental understanding and to protect a local bat population. As students read scientific explanations and wrote letters to government officials, they developed a functional metalanguage to support them in critically analyzing how language simultaneously constructs ideas, enacts power dynamics, and manages the flow of information in disciplinary texts. In another study, Román and Busch (2016) used SFL tools to identify the hidden messages about climate change in middle school science textbooks. By investigating the use of nominal groups, processes, circumstance, and modality, they found that textbooks tend to frame climate change as uncertain among scientists. The authors argued that their findings are proof that the language of science education is frequently influenced by political and public discourses, not just the science discourse. Their findings support the notion that engaging with disciplinary content is not enough; teachers must also show students how to engage in the semiotic practices that disciplinary experts use to make meaning and convey value in their field.
Taken together, these empirical studies demonstrate the potential benefits of engaging students in critical literacy development work through a functional linguistics approach (FLA). The rest of this chapter describes how functional grammar analysis — a register-based FLA — can be used to raise students' critical awareness of the varied ways scientists construe meaning and convey attitude in the process of presenting information and developing argument. More specifically, using functional grammar analysis, teachers can highlight a range of lexical, grammatical, and discursive features that
· present affect, judgment or appreciation (e.g., Thailand suffered the deadliest monsoon floods on record.),
· draw attention to something to make it salient to readers (e.g., It is clear that cold water fish are already beginning to respond to changes in water temperature and water flows.),
· represent imagined readers' experiences or thinking (e.g., As you may have learned, plants remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.),
· engage in dialogue with imagined readers (e.g., Have you ever watched a tree swaying in the breeze and wondered where wind comes from?),(https://www.daowen.com)
· direct a reader to do something (e.g., Be aware of the activities you do that release greenhouse gases, such as driving and using electricity.),
· express degree of certainty, usuality, normality, or likelihood (e.g., Cold water fish are likely to face warmer water with changed stream and river flow patterns in future years.),
· bury logical links (e.g., Coral reef ecosystems are well known for their beauty and diversity.),
· pack information in a dense way (e.g., A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that reaches from the clouds to the ground.)
· bury agency to promote objectivity and foreground ideas or concepts (e.g., A change in relative humidity can be brought about in two primary ways.), and
· create discursive flow (e.g., On the other hand, monsoons also cause floods. Those floods can destroy crops, too.).
By drawing attention to both the intent of the language and the particular ways in which language is used to make the intended meaning, teachers give students not only the tools to recognize the ways they are being positioned by the author but also the language skills needed to make their own meaning in more powerful ways.