Books by Marcello Giovanelli
This book offers an entry-level introduction to Cognitive Grammar for stylistic analysis, outlini... more This book offers an entry-level introduction to Cognitive Grammar for stylistic analysis, outlining key principles and providing clear examples of application and ideas for activities and further reading for students.
1. Introduction: stylistics – an overview; models of grammar; a cognitive view of grammar; grammar as meaningful; scope of the book
2. Conceptual Semantics: meanings, schemas, encyclopaedic semantics, domains
3. Construal: specificity, F/G, scope, profiling, trajector-landmark, vantage points
4. Nouns and Verbs: profiles and things/processes, noun and verb schemas, reference point model, scanning
5. Clauses: archetypal roles, profiling relationships, clause types
6. Grounding: instantiation, grounding strategies, clausal grounding, modality
7. Discourses: reference points, dominions and cohesion, current discourse space, simulation
8. Conclusion: further activities, reading; sample analyses
Providing a comprehensive introduction to and discussion of the value of linguistics in the secon... more Providing a comprehensive introduction to and discussion of the value of linguistics in the secondary and post 16 curriculum, this book offers a theoretical background to the history and practice of the subject in the light of government initiatives and policies, and draws on research in linguistics to support English language teachers in both their teaching and their wider pedagogical concerns. The expert range of contributors consider ways in which recent innovations in linguistics can support language teaching in schools and sixth form colleges, arguing for the central place of linguistics in teachers pre and in service development
Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Language and Linguistics in the Secondary School: Theoretical, Historical and Research-Based Perspectives 1.The value of linguistics for the teacher 2. The impact of policy on language teaching in UK schools 3. The effectiveness of explicit language teaching: evidence from the research Part 2: Applying linguistics in the classroom 4. Attitudes to language change and variation 5. Spoken language study 6. Technology and language 7. Literary linguistics 8. Cognitive linguistics 9. Corpus linguistics 10. Forensic linguistics 11. Pragmatics Part 3: Linguistics and Teacher Knowledge and Professional Development 12.Using silence: discourse analysis and teachers’ knowledge about classroom discussion 13.Narrative interrelation theory, intertextuality, and teachers’ knowledge about students’ reading 14.Systemic functional linguistics and teachers’ knowledge about students’ writing 15.Developing trainee teachers linguistic awareness: issues and practice in initial teacher training 16.Developing teachers’ linguistic knowledge: continuous professional development in schools and colleges 17. Language and linguistics in higher education: transition and post 16 English Conclusion
Includes contributions from Ron Carter (foreword), Marcello Giovanelli, Dick Hudson, Debra Myhill, Dan Clayton, Sam Hellmuth, Ian Cushing, Graeme Trousdale, Willem Hollman, Kevin Harvey, Gavin Brookes, Andrea Macrae, Billy Clark, Victoria Elliott, Jenni Ingram, Margaret Berry, Jessica Mason, Felicity Titjen, Angela Goddard
Teaching Grammar, Structure and Meaning introduces teachers to some basic ideas from the increasi... more Teaching Grammar, Structure and Meaning introduces teachers to some basic ideas from the increasingly popular field of cognitive linguistics as a way of explaining and teaching key grammatical concepts. Particularly suitable for those teaching post-16 English Language, this book offers a methodology for teaching key aspects of linguistic form and an extensive set of learning activities. Written by an experienced linguist and teacher, this book contains:
· an evaluation of current approaches to the teaching of grammar and linguistic form
· a revised pedagogy based on principles from cognitive science and cognitive linguistics
· a comprehensive set of activities and resources to support the teaching of key linguistic topics and text types
· a detailed set of suggestions for further reading and a guide to available resources.
Arguing for the use of drama, role play, gesture, energy dynamics, and visual and spatial representations as ways of enabling students to understand grammatical features, this book explores and analyses language use in a range of text types, genres and contexts. This innovative approach to teaching aspects of grammar is aimed at English teachers, student teachers and teacher trainers.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Teaching Grammar and Language: An Overview 3. Why Should Teachers be Interested in Cognitive Linguistics? 4. Embodied Cognition and Learning 5. Cognitive Linguistic Concepts for Teachers 6. Embodied Learning Activities for the Classroom 7. Conclusion
Text World Theory and Keats' Poetry applies advances in cognitive poetics and text world theory t... more Text World Theory and Keats' Poetry applies advances in cognitive poetics and text world theory to four poems by the nineteenth century poet John Keats. It takes the existing text world theory as a starting point and draws on stylistics, literary theory, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology and dream theories to explore reading poems in the light of their emphasis on states of desire, dreaming and nightmares. It accounts for the representation of these states and the ways in which they are likely to be processed, monitored and understood. Text World Theory and Keats' Poetry advances both the current field of cognitive stylistics but also analyses Keats in a way that offers new insights into his poetry. It is of interest to stylisticians and those in literary studies.
Peer-reviewed journal articles by Marcello Giovanelli
IN PRESS - PUBLISHED 2017 in ‘Changing English'
This article examines the practice of studying te... more IN PRESS - PUBLISHED 2017 in ‘Changing English'
This article examines the practice of studying texts in secondary school English lessons as a particular type of reading experience. Through a critical stylistic analysis of a popular edition of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the article explores how reading the text is framed by educational editions, and how this might present the purpose of studying fiction to students. The article draws on two cognitive linguistic concepts – figure/ground configuration and narrative schemas - in order to explore how ‘discourse about a text’ (Mason, 2016) can potentially influence how students read and engage with a text. Building on a previous article (Giovanelli and Mason, 2015), the notion of pre-figuring is developed to offer an account of how a reader’s attention can be directed to particular elements of a text, thus privileging some interpretations and downplaying others. The article then reflects more widely on the perceived purposes of studying fiction with young people, exploring in particular the recent rise of support within the profession in England for Hirsch’s (1988) ‘cultural literacy’ model, which sees knowledge about texts as more valuable than authentic reading and personal response.
This article explores the complex nature of the literature classroom by drawing on the cognitive ... more This article explores the complex nature of the literature classroom by drawing on the cognitive linguistic framework Text World Theory to examine the teacher’s role as facilitator and mediator of reading. Specifically, the article looks at how one teacher used visual representations as a way of allowing students to engage in a more personal and less teacher-driven transaction with a poem, and to encourage them to reflect on their own roles as active makers of meaning and knowledge in the classroom. The article shows how teachers can be mindful of the various contextual factors that can privilege and legitimise certain kinds of response in the classroom and be wary of external factors and pressures that can promote the idea of preconceived knowledge. The teacher in the case study presented was able to both facilitate the experience of reading poetry in an unmediated way and also develop her students’ metacognition in relation to the reading process itself. The article shows how Text World Theory’s status as a socio-cognitive grammar may be of benefit to teachers in understanding the nature of communicative interaction and literary transaction.
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2009) charts the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who is adopted by... more Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2009) charts the story of Nobody Owens, a boy who is adopted by supernatural entities in the local graveyard after his family is murdered. This article draws on the notion of the 'construed reader' (Jaakola, Töyry, Merje, and Onikki-Rantajääskö, 2014) and combines two cognitive stylistic frameworks to analyse the opening section of the novel. In doing so, the article explores the representation and significance of the family home in relation to what follows in the narrative. My analysis largely draws on Text World Theory (Werth, 1999; Gavins, 2007), but also integrates some aspects of Cognitive Grammar (Langacker, 2008), which allows for a more nuanced discussion of textual features. The analysis pays particular attention to the way Gaiman frames his narrative and positions his reader to view the fictional events from a distinctive vantage point and subsequently demonstrates how a stylistic analysis of children’s literature can lay bare how such writing is designed with a young readership in mind.
Communication Teacher
In this paper I explore how students can make use of the principles of embodied cognition and mea... more In this paper I explore how students can make use of the principles of embodied cognition and meaning, and specifically the embodied nature of metaphor to explore political discourse and communication. Work in cognitive linguistics has highlighted the fact that humans construct a view of reality that is informed by our species-specific capacities and limitations, and our interaction with the social and physical world (Tyler, 2012). In these terms, language itself can be viewed as derived from conceptualisations that are based on physical and sensory images (Holme, 2012). Together these comprise a theory of embodied cognition that can be utilised in an educational context (Giovanelli 2014).
English in Education, 2010
This article explores how the stylistic framework of Text World Theory ( Werth 1999, Gavins 2007)... more This article explores how the stylistic framework of Text World Theory ( Werth 1999, Gavins 2007) can be used in the classroom to generate critical insights and analyses of the ways in which texts operate. This approach falls within the scope of the discipline of pedagogical stylistics and as such it will examine and consider its usefulness as a teaching model to encourage both student awareness of language and wider consideration and understanding of the interaction between readers and texts, including intertextuality and the positioning of the text in its socio-historical context.
Language and Education, 2015
English Language is a fast growing and popular subject at A level but the majority of qualified s... more English Language is a fast growing and popular subject at A level but the majority of qualified secondary teachers in the UK have subject expertise and backgrounds in literature. This paper reports on interviews with seven secondary English teachers who discuss the strategies they used when taking on the responsibility of A level English Language teaching for the first time. It highlights the shifting sense of identity that these teachers felt they went through, and as such, explores some emerging issues related to identity from a narrative/personal history perspective. The study reveals that despite feelings of anxiety and low self-confidence, teachers felt that the experience had been a positive one in terms of their own developing identity as an English teacher and had impacted on other aspects of their teaching. The paper raises questions about the value of language-based work for English teachers and has implications for UK initial and continuing teacher education in English.
Download a pdf here
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ib7p5MqYKnabShezMbBZ/full
English in Education: Special Issue on Reading, May 2015
This article explores reading in the English classroom through a cognitive linguistic lens. In pa... more This article explores reading in the English classroom through a cognitive linguistic lens. In particular, we consider how students’ ability to engage with a text, which we term authentic reading, can be facilitated or restricted. We draw on two case studies featuring Year 7 students working with the novel Holes (Sachar 2000), and the short story ‘The man who shouted Teresa’ (Calvino 1996) respectively, and argue for the benefits of using cognitive linguistics as a tool for teachers and researchers to ‘think with’ when considering reading in the classroom.
Chapters in books and other academic papers by Marcello Giovanelli
to appear in A. Gibbons and A. Macrae (eds) (forthcoming 2018) Pronouns in Literature: Perspectiv... more to appear in A. Gibbons and A. Macrae (eds) (forthcoming 2018) Pronouns in Literature: Perspectives and Positions in Language, Basingstoke: Palsgrave Macmillan.
Langston Hughes (1902-67) was a renowned and celebrated twentieth-century African-American poet who contributed significant literary outputs in the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. He also published poems for children including 'The Dream Keeper and Other Poems' (Hughes 1932, 1994), a collection that is often viewed as an early and prototypical example of ‘cross-writing’ (Knoepflmacher and Myers 1997), calling out to both older and younger audiences and consequently involve a ‘colloquy between past and present selves’ (1997: vii).
In this chapter I explore Hughes’ use of first person pronouns as a way of demonstrating how the potential for ambiguous, dual referents is an important stylistic feature of Hughes’ presentation of childhood and children. I provide detailed analyses of three of the poems in this collection, ‘I, Too’, ‘Mother to Son’ and ‘Youth’, showing how a cognitive stylistic approach can draw attention to the various participant roles that are possible both in the light of the ‘cross-writing’ phenomenon and in readings that have been suggested by literary critics (e.g. Capshaw Smith 2011).
References
Capshaw Smith, K. (2011) ‘A cross-written Harlem renaissance: Langston Hughes’s The Dream Keeper’, in J. Mickenberg and L. Vallone (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, L. (1932/1994) The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Knoepflmacher, U.C., and Myers, M. (1997) ‘From the Editors: "Cross-Writing" and the Reconceptualizing of Children's Literary Studies’, Children’s Literature 25, vii-xvii.
published in Harrison, C., Nuttall, L., Stockwell, P. and Yuan, W. (eds) (2014) Cognitive Grammar in Literature, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins., 2014
Santanu Das (2007) has argued that the defining characteristics of first-world war poetry are the... more Santanu Das (2007) has argued that the defining characteristics of first-world war poetry are the stark movement away from epic forms, and the refashioning of verse as a type of ‘missive from the trenches’, both of which shift the perspective of the reading experience from distance to proximity. In this chapter, I offer a way of explaining this interpretation both generally, and specifically through analysing Siegfried Sassoon’s (1917) ‘A Working Party’. My analysis focuses on the distribution of complex temporal and atemporal profiles, the texture afforded by reference point relationships and the subsequent authorial manipulation and control over dominions, and the point-of view effects associated with pronoun use. I suggest that paying close attention to these can explain a reading experience that illuminates at close-hand the horrific intimacy of the trench.
note: uploaded file is first proof with some minor errors
Text World Theory has been largely used as an analytical framework within the field of cognitive ... more Text World Theory has been largely used as an analytical framework within the field of cognitive poetics, and with a few exceptions, its potential as a pedagogical tool has yet to be fully explored. In this chapter, I provide a rationale for teachers using text world theory as a way of understanding the reading and writing choices students make. Drawing on Halliday’s (2002) notion of ‘grammatics’ as a way of using knowledge about language ‘to think with’, I argue that teachers can exploit text world theory’s position as a cognitive discourse grammar to design meaningful tasks and activities that are mindful of the discourse strategies and resources that students use.
I exemplify my argument with detailed reference to Werth’s (1999) treatment of knowledge, knowledge partition, and text-drivenness in the context of a group of students responding to William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘The red wheelbarrow’. Here I show how a grammatics based on Text World Theory can inform the teacher of the kinds of strategies and resources that students use when engaging with and responding to texts.
This short piece looking at integrating language and literature study appeared in 'The Voice' mag... more This short piece looking at integrating language and literature study appeared in 'The Voice' magazine in Autumn 2013.
This paper was accepted for publication in The Journal of Literary Semantics, but remains unpubli... more This paper was accepted for publication in The Journal of Literary Semantics, but remains unpublished due to later being published as part of a research monograph.
Text World Theory (Werth 1995a, 1995b, 1999) has undergone radical and innovative changes during the last decade, most notably in the work of Gavins (2001, 2005, 2007). This paper builds on Gavins’s substantial revisions to Werth’s treatment of modality at the level of the sub-world and develops a model for differentiating between dreams and desire worlds within the Text World Theory framework. Using Hartmann’s (1998) continuum of mentation states and insights from cognitive linguistics (Johnson 1987; Talmy 1988; Langacker 2008), I suggest a modified model for categorising and exploring notions of desire and dream within text world theory. I then use this to explore the literary effect of the interplay of dream and dream worlds in John Keats’ poem The Eve of St Agnes, and suggest that this augmentation to Text World Theory allows better and more systematic analyses of mentation states in literary and non-literary texts.
This chapter explores the role of initial teacher training in supporting beginning teachers’ know... more This chapter explores the role of initial teacher training in supporting beginning teachers’ knowledge about language and their professional awareness of concepts and theories in linguistics. It draws on existing research both on the academic backgrounds of beginning teachers, and their linguistic knowledge and reframes the issues within the contemporary context of radical reform in the sector. Drawing on a case study highlighting how PGCE tutors have worked with beginning teachers on subject knowledge enhancement courses, it argues for the central importance of pre-service training in developing subject and pedagogical content knowledge.
This chapter provides a theoretical and professional context for the place of language awareness ... more This chapter provides a theoretical and professional context for the place of language awareness teaching in schools. It surveys the origin, nature, and identity of curriculum English, and is critical both of the compartmentalisation of English, and subsequently the historical privileging of ‘literature’ over ‘language’. It argues for a broad view of linguistics, beyond narrow deficit grammatical models, that can be useful both to the student engaging in the subject, and to the teacher using the best knowledge from the most appropriate areas of advances of linguistics to support her pedagogy and practice in the classroom.
Teaching English 6, 2014
This article was written partly in response to articles which focused on issues raised by the div... more This article was written partly in response to articles which focused on issues raised by the diversity of views on the nature of English. It outlines a positive vision of English as a unified subject and emphasises the value of integrating English at school and university.
This report explores the relationship between integrated language-literature work at A level and ... more This report explores the relationship between integrated language-literature work at A level and BA level in the UK.
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Books by Marcello Giovanelli
1. Introduction: stylistics – an overview; models of grammar; a cognitive view of grammar; grammar as meaningful; scope of the book
2. Conceptual Semantics: meanings, schemas, encyclopaedic semantics, domains
3. Construal: specificity, F/G, scope, profiling, trajector-landmark, vantage points
4. Nouns and Verbs: profiles and things/processes, noun and verb schemas, reference point model, scanning
5. Clauses: archetypal roles, profiling relationships, clause types
6. Grounding: instantiation, grounding strategies, clausal grounding, modality
7. Discourses: reference points, dominions and cohesion, current discourse space, simulation
8. Conclusion: further activities, reading; sample analyses
Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Language and Linguistics in the Secondary School: Theoretical, Historical and Research-Based Perspectives 1.The value of linguistics for the teacher 2. The impact of policy on language teaching in UK schools 3. The effectiveness of explicit language teaching: evidence from the research Part 2: Applying linguistics in the classroom 4. Attitudes to language change and variation 5. Spoken language study 6. Technology and language 7. Literary linguistics 8. Cognitive linguistics 9. Corpus linguistics 10. Forensic linguistics 11. Pragmatics Part 3: Linguistics and Teacher Knowledge and Professional Development 12.Using silence: discourse analysis and teachers’ knowledge about classroom discussion 13.Narrative interrelation theory, intertextuality, and teachers’ knowledge about students’ reading 14.Systemic functional linguistics and teachers’ knowledge about students’ writing 15.Developing trainee teachers linguistic awareness: issues and practice in initial teacher training 16.Developing teachers’ linguistic knowledge: continuous professional development in schools and colleges 17. Language and linguistics in higher education: transition and post 16 English Conclusion
Includes contributions from Ron Carter (foreword), Marcello Giovanelli, Dick Hudson, Debra Myhill, Dan Clayton, Sam Hellmuth, Ian Cushing, Graeme Trousdale, Willem Hollman, Kevin Harvey, Gavin Brookes, Andrea Macrae, Billy Clark, Victoria Elliott, Jenni Ingram, Margaret Berry, Jessica Mason, Felicity Titjen, Angela Goddard
· an evaluation of current approaches to the teaching of grammar and linguistic form
· a revised pedagogy based on principles from cognitive science and cognitive linguistics
· a comprehensive set of activities and resources to support the teaching of key linguistic topics and text types
· a detailed set of suggestions for further reading and a guide to available resources.
Arguing for the use of drama, role play, gesture, energy dynamics, and visual and spatial representations as ways of enabling students to understand grammatical features, this book explores and analyses language use in a range of text types, genres and contexts. This innovative approach to teaching aspects of grammar is aimed at English teachers, student teachers and teacher trainers.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Teaching Grammar and Language: An Overview 3. Why Should Teachers be Interested in Cognitive Linguistics? 4. Embodied Cognition and Learning 5. Cognitive Linguistic Concepts for Teachers 6. Embodied Learning Activities for the Classroom 7. Conclusion
Peer-reviewed journal articles by Marcello Giovanelli
This article examines the practice of studying texts in secondary school English lessons as a particular type of reading experience. Through a critical stylistic analysis of a popular edition of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the article explores how reading the text is framed by educational editions, and how this might present the purpose of studying fiction to students. The article draws on two cognitive linguistic concepts – figure/ground configuration and narrative schemas - in order to explore how ‘discourse about a text’ (Mason, 2016) can potentially influence how students read and engage with a text. Building on a previous article (Giovanelli and Mason, 2015), the notion of pre-figuring is developed to offer an account of how a reader’s attention can be directed to particular elements of a text, thus privileging some interpretations and downplaying others. The article then reflects more widely on the perceived purposes of studying fiction with young people, exploring in particular the recent rise of support within the profession in England for Hirsch’s (1988) ‘cultural literacy’ model, which sees knowledge about texts as more valuable than authentic reading and personal response.
Download a pdf here
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ib7p5MqYKnabShezMbBZ/full
Chapters in books and other academic papers by Marcello Giovanelli
Langston Hughes (1902-67) was a renowned and celebrated twentieth-century African-American poet who contributed significant literary outputs in the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. He also published poems for children including 'The Dream Keeper and Other Poems' (Hughes 1932, 1994), a collection that is often viewed as an early and prototypical example of ‘cross-writing’ (Knoepflmacher and Myers 1997), calling out to both older and younger audiences and consequently involve a ‘colloquy between past and present selves’ (1997: vii).
In this chapter I explore Hughes’ use of first person pronouns as a way of demonstrating how the potential for ambiguous, dual referents is an important stylistic feature of Hughes’ presentation of childhood and children. I provide detailed analyses of three of the poems in this collection, ‘I, Too’, ‘Mother to Son’ and ‘Youth’, showing how a cognitive stylistic approach can draw attention to the various participant roles that are possible both in the light of the ‘cross-writing’ phenomenon and in readings that have been suggested by literary critics (e.g. Capshaw Smith 2011).
References
Capshaw Smith, K. (2011) ‘A cross-written Harlem renaissance: Langston Hughes’s The Dream Keeper’, in J. Mickenberg and L. Vallone (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, L. (1932/1994) The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Knoepflmacher, U.C., and Myers, M. (1997) ‘From the Editors: "Cross-Writing" and the Reconceptualizing of Children's Literary Studies’, Children’s Literature 25, vii-xvii.
note: uploaded file is first proof with some minor errors
I exemplify my argument with detailed reference to Werth’s (1999) treatment of knowledge, knowledge partition, and text-drivenness in the context of a group of students responding to William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘The red wheelbarrow’. Here I show how a grammatics based on Text World Theory can inform the teacher of the kinds of strategies and resources that students use when engaging with and responding to texts.
Text World Theory (Werth 1995a, 1995b, 1999) has undergone radical and innovative changes during the last decade, most notably in the work of Gavins (2001, 2005, 2007). This paper builds on Gavins’s substantial revisions to Werth’s treatment of modality at the level of the sub-world and develops a model for differentiating between dreams and desire worlds within the Text World Theory framework. Using Hartmann’s (1998) continuum of mentation states and insights from cognitive linguistics (Johnson 1987; Talmy 1988; Langacker 2008), I suggest a modified model for categorising and exploring notions of desire and dream within text world theory. I then use this to explore the literary effect of the interplay of dream and dream worlds in John Keats’ poem The Eve of St Agnes, and suggest that this augmentation to Text World Theory allows better and more systematic analyses of mentation states in literary and non-literary texts.
1. Introduction: stylistics – an overview; models of grammar; a cognitive view of grammar; grammar as meaningful; scope of the book
2. Conceptual Semantics: meanings, schemas, encyclopaedic semantics, domains
3. Construal: specificity, F/G, scope, profiling, trajector-landmark, vantage points
4. Nouns and Verbs: profiles and things/processes, noun and verb schemas, reference point model, scanning
5. Clauses: archetypal roles, profiling relationships, clause types
6. Grounding: instantiation, grounding strategies, clausal grounding, modality
7. Discourses: reference points, dominions and cohesion, current discourse space, simulation
8. Conclusion: further activities, reading; sample analyses
Contents:
Introduction Part 1: Language and Linguistics in the Secondary School: Theoretical, Historical and Research-Based Perspectives 1.The value of linguistics for the teacher 2. The impact of policy on language teaching in UK schools 3. The effectiveness of explicit language teaching: evidence from the research Part 2: Applying linguistics in the classroom 4. Attitudes to language change and variation 5. Spoken language study 6. Technology and language 7. Literary linguistics 8. Cognitive linguistics 9. Corpus linguistics 10. Forensic linguistics 11. Pragmatics Part 3: Linguistics and Teacher Knowledge and Professional Development 12.Using silence: discourse analysis and teachers’ knowledge about classroom discussion 13.Narrative interrelation theory, intertextuality, and teachers’ knowledge about students’ reading 14.Systemic functional linguistics and teachers’ knowledge about students’ writing 15.Developing trainee teachers linguistic awareness: issues and practice in initial teacher training 16.Developing teachers’ linguistic knowledge: continuous professional development in schools and colleges 17. Language and linguistics in higher education: transition and post 16 English Conclusion
Includes contributions from Ron Carter (foreword), Marcello Giovanelli, Dick Hudson, Debra Myhill, Dan Clayton, Sam Hellmuth, Ian Cushing, Graeme Trousdale, Willem Hollman, Kevin Harvey, Gavin Brookes, Andrea Macrae, Billy Clark, Victoria Elliott, Jenni Ingram, Margaret Berry, Jessica Mason, Felicity Titjen, Angela Goddard
· an evaluation of current approaches to the teaching of grammar and linguistic form
· a revised pedagogy based on principles from cognitive science and cognitive linguistics
· a comprehensive set of activities and resources to support the teaching of key linguistic topics and text types
· a detailed set of suggestions for further reading and a guide to available resources.
Arguing for the use of drama, role play, gesture, energy dynamics, and visual and spatial representations as ways of enabling students to understand grammatical features, this book explores and analyses language use in a range of text types, genres and contexts. This innovative approach to teaching aspects of grammar is aimed at English teachers, student teachers and teacher trainers.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Teaching Grammar and Language: An Overview 3. Why Should Teachers be Interested in Cognitive Linguistics? 4. Embodied Cognition and Learning 5. Cognitive Linguistic Concepts for Teachers 6. Embodied Learning Activities for the Classroom 7. Conclusion
This article examines the practice of studying texts in secondary school English lessons as a particular type of reading experience. Through a critical stylistic analysis of a popular edition of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, the article explores how reading the text is framed by educational editions, and how this might present the purpose of studying fiction to students. The article draws on two cognitive linguistic concepts – figure/ground configuration and narrative schemas - in order to explore how ‘discourse about a text’ (Mason, 2016) can potentially influence how students read and engage with a text. Building on a previous article (Giovanelli and Mason, 2015), the notion of pre-figuring is developed to offer an account of how a reader’s attention can be directed to particular elements of a text, thus privileging some interpretations and downplaying others. The article then reflects more widely on the perceived purposes of studying fiction with young people, exploring in particular the recent rise of support within the profession in England for Hirsch’s (1988) ‘cultural literacy’ model, which sees knowledge about texts as more valuable than authentic reading and personal response.
Download a pdf here
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/ib7p5MqYKnabShezMbBZ/full
Langston Hughes (1902-67) was a renowned and celebrated twentieth-century African-American poet who contributed significant literary outputs in the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. He also published poems for children including 'The Dream Keeper and Other Poems' (Hughes 1932, 1994), a collection that is often viewed as an early and prototypical example of ‘cross-writing’ (Knoepflmacher and Myers 1997), calling out to both older and younger audiences and consequently involve a ‘colloquy between past and present selves’ (1997: vii).
In this chapter I explore Hughes’ use of first person pronouns as a way of demonstrating how the potential for ambiguous, dual referents is an important stylistic feature of Hughes’ presentation of childhood and children. I provide detailed analyses of three of the poems in this collection, ‘I, Too’, ‘Mother to Son’ and ‘Youth’, showing how a cognitive stylistic approach can draw attention to the various participant roles that are possible both in the light of the ‘cross-writing’ phenomenon and in readings that have been suggested by literary critics (e.g. Capshaw Smith 2011).
References
Capshaw Smith, K. (2011) ‘A cross-written Harlem renaissance: Langston Hughes’s The Dream Keeper’, in J. Mickenberg and L. Vallone (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Children’s Literature, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, L. (1932/1994) The Dream Keeper and Other Poems, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
Knoepflmacher, U.C., and Myers, M. (1997) ‘From the Editors: "Cross-Writing" and the Reconceptualizing of Children's Literary Studies’, Children’s Literature 25, vii-xvii.
note: uploaded file is first proof with some minor errors
I exemplify my argument with detailed reference to Werth’s (1999) treatment of knowledge, knowledge partition, and text-drivenness in the context of a group of students responding to William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘The red wheelbarrow’. Here I show how a grammatics based on Text World Theory can inform the teacher of the kinds of strategies and resources that students use when engaging with and responding to texts.
Text World Theory (Werth 1995a, 1995b, 1999) has undergone radical and innovative changes during the last decade, most notably in the work of Gavins (2001, 2005, 2007). This paper builds on Gavins’s substantial revisions to Werth’s treatment of modality at the level of the sub-world and develops a model for differentiating between dreams and desire worlds within the Text World Theory framework. Using Hartmann’s (1998) continuum of mentation states and insights from cognitive linguistics (Johnson 1987; Talmy 1988; Langacker 2008), I suggest a modified model for categorising and exploring notions of desire and dream within text world theory. I then use this to explore the literary effect of the interplay of dream and dream worlds in John Keats’ poem The Eve of St Agnes, and suggest that this augmentation to Text World Theory allows better and more systematic analyses of mentation states in literary and non-literary texts.
Representing the coming together of the ‘Seattle sound’ of seminal Seattle bands Green River and the recently dissolved Mother Love Bone, and a more classic blues-rock with the dark, Morrisonesque angst of its front man Eddie Vedder and his haunting autobiographical lyrics, the album became the quintessential sound of the grunge movement’s explosion in the early nineties.
Ten sold over 10 million copies and marking the way for their second album Vs, which broke all first-week sales records and put Vedder on the cover of Time magazine. Whilst the sound provided the blueprint for mid-late nineties alternative rock and nu-metal bands, for Pearl Jam, it became a benchmark against which they progressively sought to distance themselves. Their later albums Vitalogy and No Code deliberately marked themselves as more proto-punk, anti-materialist and anti-commercial, refusing to develop Ten’s initial sound. They stopped making videos, refused interviews, took on Ticketmaster, released live bootlegs of their shows, released their last album independently and work tirelessly for charitable causes. With Ten, lies the paradox of Pearl Jam: the band created the archetypal era-defining rock/grunge album, breathtaking in its musicianship and depth of emotional intensity, only to spend the rest of their careers working against it. For that reason, it remains a most intriguing debut album.
"
In this paper, I draw on a case study that involved working with a teacher in a UK secondary school who had expressed an interest in using the conceptual and practical affordances of Text World Theory to support the teaching of reading, writing and creativity in her classroom (see Giovanelli, forthcoming). This paper therefore raises questions about the practical application of theoretical models in stylistics, their value in promoting high-quality learning and teaching and the relationship between stylistics – and linguistics more generally - and teacher education.
References
Giovanelli, M. (forthcoming) ‘Text World Theory as cognitive grammatics: A pedagogical application in the secondary classroom’, in J. Gavins and E. Lahey (eds), World-Building: Discourse in the Mind, London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Halliday, M. (2002) ‘On grammar and grammatics’ in J. Webster (ed.) On Grammar: Vol 1 of the Collected Works of MAK Halliday, London: Continuum: pp. 384-417.
This paper builds on Halliday’s (2002) notion of ‘grammatics’ as a way of using knowledge about language ‘to think with’. Starting from the primary notions of embodied cognition and embodied learning, and drawing on both empirical research from the fields of cognitive linguistics and psychology, and cases studies from UK schools, I argue that the opportunities offered by what I have called a ‘cognitive grammatics’ represent a rich and plausible pedagogy for the classroom teacher.