Subject-Specific Academic Language Versus Mathematical Discourse

2018 ◽  
pp. 25-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Schütte
Keyword(s):  
Academic Language ◽  
Mathematical Discourse ◽  
Subject Specific

Learning to meet language demands in multi-step mathematical argumentations: Design research on a subject-specific genre

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Prediger ◽  
Kerstin Hein
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Learning Processes ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
Design Experiments

AbstractFormal multi-step mathematical argumentations are a typical case of a highly specified subject-specific genre in the technical language with challenging demands in the academic language of schooling. The design research project presented here has the dual aim of (1) specifying the structural and language demands of formal mathematical argumentations and (2) designing a teaching-learning arrangement that uses structural scaffolding to foster students to successively meet these demands. These dual aims are pursued by an in-depth empirical analysis of students’ processes on the micro-level. For this purpose, 15 design experiments were conducted with 10 pairs of students in three design experiment cycles. The first two cycles served to develop the structural scaffolding and the third cycle served to investigate the initiated learning processes and the language demands on the lexical and syntactical level. The qualitative in-depth analysis of the teaching-learning processes in the design experiments shows how students can successively learn to conduct multi-step argumentations when supported by structural scaffolding. Expressing the argumentations in an adequate way, however, is an additional challenge. The empirical analysis reveals deep insights into the complex interplay of conditional, causal, and consecutive phrases that are necessary to combine premises, arguments, and conclusions in a logical sound way. The design research study has theoretical consequences for conceptualizing subject-specific discursive demands as well as practical implications as one design outcome is a prototype of the learning arrangement to foster students in a mathematics- and language-integrated way.

Modellierung sprachlicher Anforderungen in Testaufgaben verschiedener Unterrichtsfächer: Theoretische und empirische Grundlagen

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 (69) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Heine ◽  
Madeleine Domenech ◽  
Lisa Otto ◽  
Astrid Neumann ◽  
Michael Krelle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Education System ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
School Success ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractRecent years have witnessed a growing interest in the relationship between academic language registers and school success in the German-speaking education system. However, we still know very little about the actual effects that academic language has on the academic performance of students, for instance, in how far the extent to which academic language is used in subject tasks actually makes these tasks more difficult. It is therefore highly vital that any operationalization of difficulty-inducing linguistic features of tasks is made on solid theoretical and empirical grounds. The purpose of this article is thus to present the linguistic foundation used in an interdisciplinary empirical study in which 1.346 7th and 8th graders solved a set of subject-oriented tasks from Maths, Physics, German, PE and Music, while the degree of linguistic demands in the tasks was systematically varied. First, the theoretical and empirical research on linguistic difficulty from a range of research discourses is discussed. The findings are merged into a model of linguistic demands. Its operationalization is then illustrated in three linguistically varied versions of the subject-specific tasks. Finally, an outlook on preliminary results of the empirical study is given, which indicate that the categories used in the model actually do produce differences in subject-task difficulty, even though there are a number of effects that need further investigation.

A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualising content-language integration in CLIL and multilingual education

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christiane Dalton-Puffer
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
School Level ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Explicit Model ◽  
Multilingual Education ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
Discourse Functions ◽  
And Linguistics

AbstractSchool-level learners who study curricular content in a language that is not their first require active support in their development of academic language, ideally in conjunction with working on said content. However, content teachers naturally orient towards the learning goals formulated for their respective subjects, while language teachers do not routinely consider them. This situation could be resolved if a zone of convergence between content and language pedagogies could be established. In this paper I argue that cognitive discourse functions (CDFs) constitute such a zone of convergence as the cognitive processes involving subject-specific facts, concepts and categories are verbalized in recurring and patterned ways during the event of co-creating knowledge in the classroom. While numerous publications make reference to such discourse functions, no coherent and theoretically explicit model of CDFs exists to date. The main purpose of this paper is, therefore, to introduce such a model that is theoretically explicit and conceptually anchored in both education and linguistics. Initial evidence for the empirical grounding of the construct is presented and suggestions are made for the further elaboration, consolidation and use of the CDF Construct introduced in this article.

The Inherited Past of the Broch: On Antiquarian Discourse and Contemporary Archaeology

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW BAINES
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Contemporary Archaeology ◽  
The North

In reading archaeological texts, we expect to be engaged in a characteristically archaeological discourse, with a specific and recognisable structure and vocabulary. In evaluating the published work of 19th Century antiquarians, we will inevitably look for points of contact between their academic language and our own; success or failure in the identification of such points of contact may prompt us to recognise a nascent archaeology in some writings, while dismissing others as naïve or absurd. With this point in mind, this paper discusses the written and material legacies of three 19th Century antiquarians in the north of Scotland who worked on a particular monument type, the broch. The paper explores the degree to which each has been admitted as an influence on the development of the broch as a type. It then proceeds to compare this established typology with the author's experiences, in the field, of the sites it describes. In doing so, the paper addresses wider issues concerning the role of earlier forms of archaeological discourse in the development of present day archaeological classifications of, and of the problems of reconciling such classifications with our experiences of material culture.

Gemeinsprachliche Ressourcen beim Wissens- und Wissenschaftstransfer - die Rolle der Deixis bei der propositionalen Komposition in universitären Vorlesungen in den Fächern Physik und Maschinenbau

Fachsprache ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 104-122
Author(s):  
Winfried Thielmann
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Mechanical Engineering ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Academic Teaching

Abstract Languages for special purposes have mainly been considered from the point of view that they are specialized, i.e. that they satisfy the terminological needs of expression of specialized groups. The purpose of this contribution is to demonstrate that specialized discourses such as university lectures may make specific use of ordinary language devices. An analysis of sections from German lectures in physics and mechanical engineering reveals that deictics play a special role in propositional  composition. The findings are relevant for the general principles of linguistic science and knowledge transfer as well as for teaching German as a first or second academic language. Schlagwörter: Sprache wissenschaftlicher Lehre – Deixis – Physik – Maschinenbau – propositionale Komposition Key words: Language of academic teaching – deictics – physics – mechanical engineering – propositional composition

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COGNITIVE ACADEMIC LANGUAGE LEARNING STRATEGIES (CALLS) TO HELP THE STUDENTS IN RECOGNIZING THE LEXICAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE STUDENTS TRANSLATION

JURNAL ELINK ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Diah Astuty
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Academic Language ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Language Learning Strategies ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Lexical Constraints ◽  
Language Text

his study aims to describe the sorts of lexical constraints that appeared on the students translation when translating some source language texts into some target language texts. The competence of linguistic fields that the students have acquired is in the fact assumed to be inadequate and it can cause the lexical constraints.Keywords: CALLS, lexical constraints,source language text,target language text

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