The Linguistic Challenge of the Transition to Secondary School : A Corpus Study of Academic Language

This book provides a unique analysis and description of the linguistic challenges faced by school students as they move from primary to secondary school, a major transition, which some students struggle with emotionally and academically. The study: • draws on a bespoke corpus of 2.5 million words of written materials and transcribed classroom recordings, provided by the project's partner schools; • combines quantitative and qualitative approaches to the corpus data to explore linguistic variation across school levels, registers and subjects; • describes the procedures of corpus compilation and analysis of written and spoken academic language, showing how modern corpus tools can be applied to this far-reaching social and educational issue; • uncovers differences and similarities between the academic language that school children are exposed to at primary and secondary school, contrasting this against the backdrop of the non-academic language that they encounter outside school. This book is important reading for advanced students and researchers in corpus linguistics, applied linguistics and teacher education. It carries implications for policymakers and schools looking to support students at this critical point in their schooling. This book provides a unique analysis and description of the linguistic challenges faced by school students as they move from primary to secondary school, a major transition, which some students struggle with emotionally and academically. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Table of Contents 6 List of extracts 11 List of figures 12 List of tables 13 Acknowledgements 15 Chapter 1 Schools, the transition, students and teachers 16 Introduction 16 The transition and the context of this research 17 Issues at transition 18 Social, psychological and emotional issues 19 Academic issues 21 Language and the transition 23 The voices of students in our project schools 27 Aims of this book 34 Notes 34 References 34 Chapter 2 Academic language and the school transition 39 Introduction 39 Perspectives on the language of school 39 Bernstein’s language codes and the language of school 39 The Systemic-Functional Linguistics approach 41 BICS and CALP 41 CALS 42 Academic language and function 43 Academic language and social prestige 43 Function: Academic language to facilitate and express academic thought 45 Register and genre 47 Features of academic language 50 Overview 50 Disciplinary language 53 The vocabulary of school 54 Polysemy and homonymy 55 Tiers 57 Grammar and discourse 59 Specific issues at the transition 59 Conclusion 60 References 60 Chapter 3 Corpus data and methods 67 Introduction 67 Constructing our corpus 69 Characteristics of our partner schools 69 Corpus design and representativeness 73 The written corpus 75 Representativeness and data gathering 75 Composition of the written corpus 75 Sub-registers 76 The spoken corpus 78 Corpus analytical methods used 80 Quantitative data analysis procedures 81 Multi-dimensional analysis 81 Dimension 1: Involved versus informational discourse 81 Dimension 2: Narrative versus non-narrative discourse 82 Dimension 3: Situation-dependent versus elaborated reference 82 Dimension 4: Overt expression of persuasion 82 Dimension 5: Abstract versus non-abstract information 83 Mixed and qualitative data analysis 83 Conclusion 85 References 85 Chapter 4 Written school language registers at the transition 89 Introduction 89 The corpus 91 Analytical steps 93 Statistical analysis 94 Multi-dimensional analysis of school language registers 95 Dimension 1: Involved versus informational discourse 95 Dimension 2: Narrative versus non-narrative discourse 98 Dimension 3: Explicit versus situation-dependent discourse 101 Dimension 4: Overt expression of persuasion 105 Dimension 5: Impersonal versus non-impersonal style 107 Discussion 111 Conclusion 114 References 114 Chapter 5 The language of English at the transition 118 Introduction 118 The KS2 and KS3 curricula 118 Assessment 121 Reading in Years 5–8 122 Reading for pleasure 122 Making inferences 123 Understanding genre, purpose and audience; criticality 124 Writing in Years 5–8 124 Understanding genre, purpose and audience 124 Language and metalanguage in Years 5–8 125 Vocabulary 125 Grammar teaching 126 Corpus studies of the language of English in Years 5–8 128 Method 128 The corpora used 128 Frequent word analysis 130 Keyword analysis 133 Results 135 Word frequency: Aboutness 135 Keywords 141 Conclusion 148 Note 149 References 149 Chapter 6 The language of science at the transition 153 Introduction 153 The KS2 and KS3 curricula 153 Language and learning science at school 155 Scientific thinking and the language of science 155 School science, language and socio-economic status 156 Features of the language of school science 157 Discourse 157 Grammar 158 Vocabulary 159 Polysemy 160 Method 161 The corpora 161 Focus and tools 163 Results 164 Keywords 164 Frequent words 164 Aboutness and general science words 165 Polysemy 168 Group 1: Contextual differences 171 Group 2: Fine-grained differences in use 172 Group 3: Meaning differences 174 Group 4: Lexico-grammatical differences 176 Group 5: Frequency differences 177 Metaphorical uses 179 Discussion and conclusion 181 References 181 Chapter 7 The language of mathematics at the transition 186 Introduction 186 The KS2 and KS3 curricula 186 Learning mathematics and language 188 Mathematics, anxiety and the transition 188 Talking about mathematics 190 Features of the language of mathematics 190 Discourse 190 Grammar 192 Vocabulary 192 Method 195 The corpora 195 Key feature analysis 195 Keyword analysis 196 Concordance and collocational analysis 197 Findings 197 Key feature analysis 197 Results of keyword analysis 200 Discourse functions of keywords 200 Patterns of meanings of keywords 205 Part-of-speech categories 205 Concrete and abstract keywords 205 Polysemy 206 Collocation 207 Conclusion 211 Note 211 References 212 Chapter 8 Conclusion 216 Introduction 216 Key issues and findings 216 The move from generalist to specialist teachers 216 Register features 217 Polysemy 217 Other language issues 218 Context 219 Awareness of the linguistic challenges of transition 219 Academic language and home learning environment 219 Understanding the purpose of academic language 220 Research on school language and transition 220 Future research and ways forward 221 References 222 Index 224 academic,language;,applied,linguistics;,corpus,linguistics;,English;,linguistic,challenges;,linguistic,variation;,mathematics;,non-academic,language;,science;,school,language,registers;,school,students;,transition academic language,applied linguistics,corpus linguistics,English,linguistic challenges,linguistic variation,mathematics,non-academic language,science,school language registers,school students,transition