A review of M. A. K. Halliday, Aspects of Language and Learning
Yu Functional Linguistics
A review of M. A. K. Halliday, Aspects of Language and Learning
Hui Yu
This volume was published as one of the “M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics” Series. It is based on a series of lectures given by Professor Halliday at the National University of Singapore in 1986. The theme of these lectures is to construct a linguistically informed theory of education, providing a linguistic interpretation of how people learn. The lectures as a whole provide an essential framework of Halliday's ideas on language, knowledge and education.
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scientific discourse in school is not as wide as generally assumed. There exists a
continuity between the two, the latter of which is further discussed in the next chapter.
Chapter four, “Language and Learning in the Primary School”, explores the learning
process from four perspectives: initial literacy, style and registers in the primary school,
the beginnings of scientific discourse, spoken and written language in education. When
children begin their school education, they have to call up experiences stored
previously, to help them learn to read and write. There is much more to children’s writing
ability than just writing a narrative. Children should also learn to write other types of
writing including scientific discourse, for they learn, not just scientific knowledge, but
also the language in which knowledge is presented. In the process, children gradually
become aware of the differences between spoken language and written language, i.e.
the grammatical intricacy of the spoken language vs. the lexical density of the written
language. Specifically how subject-oriented learning takes place is further explored in
the next chapter.
Chapter five, “The Language of School ‘Subjects’” investigates another stage of learning.
As children move on to secondary school, they begin to work with different school
subjects. The task of educational linguistics is not just to describe the language of subject
learning, but also to explain it regarding the way language is used. Teaching environment
is not restricted to classroom, but takes various forms including textbook, library research,
homework and so on, in which the field is the same, but the tenor and the mode are
different. It is the tenor and the mode, rather than the field that sets the patterns of teaching.
The analysis of how the discourse matches up to the context shows that every teacher is a
teacher of language, which is to say all learning is a linguistic process.
Chapter six, “English and Chinese: Similarities and Differences”, approaches the issue
of language and education from a comparative point of view. All human babies are
alike in that they develop a system of their own protolanguage despite the differences
in their mother tongue. It may be a stage comparable to an earlier phase in the
evolution of human language. Observation of children’s transition into the mother tongue
shows important similarities with their mode of entry into the language. The mode of
learning for English-speaking and Chinese-speaking children is essentially the same.
Speaking different mother tongues does not create significant differences regarding
children’s understanding of school subjects. There do exist significant differences
between English and Chinese which may create different learning experiences for
learners. Nevertheless, both languages will develop in the same direction due to
pressure from social and technical development.
Chapter seven, “Languages and Cultures”, provides an even broader picture of
language and learning. Complex patterns of English in Singapore are described. Examples
from different languages are also cited and analyzed to further illustrate the relationship
between language and culture. The aim is to draw on general principles relating to
language and learning.
Chapter eight, “Language, Education and Science: Future Needs”, is the last
lecture given in this series of talks in Singapore. It rounds off the lectures by not only
summarizing the previous talks, but also pointing out directions toward which
educational linguistics should develop. At the end of the lecture, Halliday draws
attention to an emerging research frontier, the increasing contact between linguistics
and natural science.
Conclusion
Throughout the lectures, Halliday has been trying to present the perspective that
learning is a linguistic process. Learning is not simply learning the knowledge of the subject.
Rather, it is more about learning how the knowledge of the subject is codified and
transmitted via language. It is therefore important for a linguist to explain how
language functions in the process of education. To answer that, at least three questions
should be asked: (1) How is knowledge organized through language? (2) How does
language help students to learn? (3) What does the teacher need to know about language
in order to help students along their learning process? These lectures were given 30
years ago (...truncated)