Foreign Language Teaching Applications and Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic Functional Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching - Anne McCabe

Anne McCabe [+-]
Saint Louis University
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Anne McCabe is a faculty member of the English Department at Saint Louis University, Madrid Campus, Spain, where she teaches linguistics, ESL and writing pedagogy to undergraduate and graduate students. She has published widely on application of Systemic Functional Linguistics to analysis of educational and media texts including An Introduction to Linguistics and Language Studies (Equinox).

Description

Chapter 2 reviews the applications of SFL to foreign language teaching. These applications have mainly been in the realm of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), including English for Academic Purposes (EAP), based in good measure on Halliday, et al.’s (1964) introduction of the notion of register. After detailing the aspects of SFL that have been applied to ESP/EAP (such as Theme/Rheme and thematic patterning, grammatical metaphor, appraisal), the chapter will take a short tour through SFL-informed genre-based pedagogy (GBP) and Reading-to-Learn (RtL); while these pedagogical applications of SFL theory have taken place mainly in second language contexts, especially those where children are faced with having to learn the additional language for purposes of schooling, they are relevant to some foreign language contexts, especially more content-based approaches such as content-and-language-integrated-learning (CLIL). The chapter will also review other SFL-based applications toteaching in foreign language contexts, for example through an examination of Tajino’s (2018) “meaning-based pedagogic grammar” (MAP grammar), which is an attempt at using SFL to teach the linguistic system at early levels of foreign language learning, and through the burgeoning work in applying SFL descriptions and pedagogy to languages other than English (Colobmi, 2009; Huang & Mohan, 2009; Troyan, 2021).

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Citation

McCabe, Anne. Foreign Language Teaching Applications and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Systemic Functional Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. Sep 2025. ISBN 9781000000000. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=42808. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.42808. Sep 2025

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