CALVO ANA INÉS
Congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
SFL contributions to the development of writing strategies
Lugar:
Córdoba
Reunión:
Encuentro; V Encuentro Nacional de Profesorados de Inglés; 2016
Institución organizadora:
Instituto Juan Zorrilla de San Martín
Resumen:
Knowing the rules that specify the possible grammatical structures of a language does not guarantee effective text production. Students may be able to recognize and produce well-formed sentences but this will not necessarily mean the ability to select suitable grammatical structures that contribute to the coherence and cohesion of their written texts. In this presentation we share a proposal aimed at reflecting upon some of the lexico-grammatical resources involved in the production of written texts, and their appropriate use in context. Our main objective is to raise students? awareness of these mechanisms so that they can use them effectively and strategically in their own texts. In this classroom experience, students complete a text by making choices from a set of alternative clauses. To select the most suitable version for the given textual context, they need to analyze different aspects of the structural configuration of clauses provided. In this way, they come to understand that whenever they produce a text they are making choices and that these choices need to fit the text. The proposal emphasizes the notion of choice ? there are choices among the different lexico-grammatical options available in the system that are favored by the context in which they are used. This view of language as a system of choices comes from the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which was developed by M.A.K Halliday (1978, 1985, 2004). Language is understood as a network of options that acquire meaning when compared to other potential options available in the system. This activity has been used with students of English Grammar II at the Faculty of Languages but it can be adapted to be used in any language course oriented to the development of writing strategies.