Jorge Arús Hita

Department of Filología Inglesa, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Developing literacy in a second language: a systemic-functional approach

This paper looks at literacy in the context of second language learning. In particular, the systemic conception of language as a resource will be suggested as ideal for proficiency-oriented teaching, i.e. teaching to develop literacy in the target language.

Choices in the resources provided by the lexicogrammar are directly motivated by extralinguistic factors at the level of the context of situation. Whereas native speakers make those choices in an intentional -yet unconscious- way, non-proficient learners make their selections intentionally and non-automatically (i.e. consciously). I will claim that proficiency is achieved through the automatization of choices in the lexicogrammatical resources, which in turn accounts for the ability to function effectively in a given context of situation within a particular context of culture; i.e. being literate in the language of that culture.

In this paper I will show how effective teaching should focus on developing the strategies to negotiate discourse practices in a context of situation through the appropriate, and progressively more unconscious, use of the resources in the lexicogrammar. This kind of teaching in which the linguistic relates to the extralinguistic fosters the development of empathy with the target culture, thus ironing out the bumpy road to literacy.