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Educational Linguistics: The Acquisition of Literacy By Steve Hoenisch Last updated on Feb. 21, 2006 Copyright 1996-2006 www.Criticism.Com Table of Contents 1 Purpose of Course 2 Goals 3 Description 4 Requirements 5 Preliminary Readings: Getting Started 6 Primary Readings 7 Background Reading 8 Extended Bibliography 9 Related Pages 10 Bookstore 1 Purpose of Course
To explore the structural and functional linguistic influences of a
learners' spoken language on the acquisition of
literacy, particularly writing.
2 Goals
To acquire a knowledge of the linguistic issues, problems, and
findings pertaining to the acquisition of writing as set forth in
representative papers and books from the linguistics literature.
To analyze the structural, functional,
cultural, and discourse factors that may affect the acquisition
of writing and literacy in a first or second language.
3 Description
This course will examine the linguistic factors that
affect the acquisition of literacy. We will look
at the linguistic influences of spoken language on written
communication, making the acquisition of writing our primary
focus. The emphasis will be on the acquisition of writing in the
first language, but effects of literacy and illiteracy in a first
language on learning to write in a second language will also be
considered.
The problems encountered by speakers of nonstandard dialects in
producing standardized writing will be investigated. A
central issue, at least on the surface, is the conflict between
the everyday use of a nonstandard dialect and the societal
requirements of using a highly standardized form in written communication, including that of educational
institutions. Grammatical structures commonly used in spoken
communication, for instance, often violate prescriptive rules of
written communication. What problems do the morphology, syntax,
semantics, phonology, and narrative structure of disfavored
dialects create in learning to write in the standard dialect or
prestige norm?
Other issues pertain to education. Why has there been a
general failure among teachers to pass their qualifying
examinations in writing? What are potential linguistic influences
that have contributed to that failure? If the acquisition of
writing has been a problem for pupils, can we identify potential
linguistic causes of it? How can the insights of linguistics
contribute to enhancing the practice of teaching writing to
first- and second-language learners?
Can the findings of discourse analysis
about the coherence and structure of written texts beyond the
level of the sentence contribute to the teaching of writing? As
Odlin (1989: 58) points out,
Differences related to expectations about coherence in discourse may create special problems for learners in their reading or listening comprehension efforts. Alternatively, those differences may lead members of a speech community to consider the speech or writing of non-native speakers incoherent. It is not yet clear just how often such differences actually result in negative transfer. What is clear is the potential that cross-linguistic variations in discourse have for creating misunderstandings. More specifically, how do differences in standards of
logicality and relevance among speech communities within the same
language affect their production and understanding of written
communication.
These issues and others like them will be our
point of departure.
5 Preliminary Readings: Getting Started6 Primary Readings7 Background Reading8 Extended BibliographyBrown, Gillian and Yule, George. 1983. Discourse Analysis.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carrell, Patricia. 1982. Cohesion is not coherence. TESOL
Quarterly 16: 479-488.
Chafe, W. L. 1976. "Givenness, contrastiveness, definiteness, subjects, topics, and point of view." In C. N. Li (ed.).
Chafe, Wallace L. 1985. Linguistic differences produced by
differences between speaking and writing. In Olson, Torrance, and
Hildyard (eds.). 1985. Literacy, Language, and Learning: The
Nature and Consequences of Reading and Writing. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Clyde, M.G. 1987. "Cultural differences in the organization of academic texts: English and German." Journal of Pragmatics 11, no. 2: 211-247.
Connor, U. 1991. "Linguistics\rhetorical measures for evaluating ESL writing." In Lyons, L. Hamp (ed.). 1991. Assessing Second Language in Academic Contexts, 215-226. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Connor and Farmer. 1990. "The teaching of topical structure analysis as a revision strategy for ESL writers." In Kroll, Barbara (ed.) 1990. Second Language Writing: Research Insights for the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dahl, O. 1969. Topic and Comment: A Study in Russian and Transformational Grammar. Slavica Gothoburgensia 4: Goteborg.
Dahl, O. 1976. "What is new information?" in N. E. Enkvist & V. Kohonen (eds.) Reports on Text Linguistics: Approaches to Word Order. Abo, Finland: Abo Akademi Foundation.
Danes, F. 1964. "A three-level approach to syntax." Travaux linguistiques de Prague 1: 225-240.
Danes, F. (ed.) 1974. Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective. Prague: Academia.
de Beaugrande, R. & Dressler, W. U. 1981. Introduction to Text Linguistics. London: Longman.
Enkvist, Nils Erik. 1973. Linguistic Stylistics. The Hague: Mouton.
Farr Whiteman, Marcia. 1981. Writing: The Nature, Development,
and Teaching of Written Communication. Volume 1, Variation in
Writing: Functional and Linguistic-Cultural Differences.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Fasold, Ralph. 1990. The Sociolinguistics of Language. Oxford,
U.K.: Blackwell.
Firbas, Jan. 1964. "On defining the theme in functional sentence perspective." Travaux linguistiques de Prague 1: 267-280.
Gumperz, J. 1982. Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Holliday, M. A. K. 1967 & 1968. "Notes on transitivity and theme in English." Journal of Linguistics 3: 37-81, 199-244; 4: 179-215.
Holliday, M. A. K. & Hasan, R. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Kroll, Barbara (ed.). Second Language Writing: Research Insights
for the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Lautamatti, L. 1987. "Observations on the development of the topic in simplified discourse." In R.B. Kaplan and U. Connor (eds.) 1987. Writing Across Languages: Analysis of L2 Text. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1987.
Levinson, Stephen C. Pragmatics. 1983. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Li, C. N. (ed.) 1976. Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press.
Lyons, Liz Hamp (ed.). 1991. Assessing Second Language in Academic Contexts. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Odlin, Terence. 1989. Language Transfer: Cross-Linguistic
Influence in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Reed, Carol. 1981. Teaching teachers about teaching writing to
students from varied linguistic social and cultural groups. In
Farr Whiteman 1981: 139-152.
Schneider, M., and U. Connor. 1991. "Analyzing topical structure in ESL essays: Not all topics are equal." In Studies in Second Language Acquisition 12: 411-427.
Stubbs, Michael. 1983. Discourse Analysis: The Sociolinguistic
Analysis of Natural Language. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Stubbs, Michael. 1980. Language and Literacy: The
Sociolinguistics of Reading and Writing. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Stubbs, Michael. 1884. Applied Discourse Analysis
and Educational Linguistics. In Trudgill 1984.
Stubbs, Michael. 1986. Educational Linguistics. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
Trudgill, Peter (ed.). 1984a. Applied Sociolinguistics. London:
Academic Press.
Vachek, Josef. 1973. Written Language: General Problems and
Problems of English. The Hague: Mouton.
van Dijk, Teun A. 1977. Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse. New York: Longman Group.
Witte, S.P. 1983a. "Topical structure and revision: an exploratory study." College Composition and Communication 34, no. 3: 313-341.
Witte, S.P. 1983b. "Topical structure and writing quality: some possible text-based explanations of readers' judgements of students' writing." Visible Language 17: 177-205.
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