Culturally sustaining approaches to academic languaging through systemic functional linguistics

Abstract

Historically, academic language (AL) has been a highly contentious and debated construct, criticized because of its framing as a set of objective linguistic forms requisite in academic settings, as being more specialized and complex than non-academic registers, and prioritizing White linguistic practices. Educators in support of AL instruction view it as an inherent part of each academic discipline and, therefore, as a tool for equity and access that provides students entry into the curriculum and enhances their chance of success in school. Both camps concur that a focus on teaching academic registers without scrutiny of their raciolinguistic implications may certainly sustain linguistic hierarchies of registers and reinforce deficit views of racialized communities’ language practices. In response to this pressing debate described above, we discuss the theoretical and pedagogical framework of Culturally Sustaining Systemic Functional Linguistics as a means for centering students’ cultural and language practices while heightening their critical language awareness around academic registers. The marriage of CSP and SFL, embodied in CSSFL, presents an avenue to address raciolinguistic ideologies while engaging with our revised relationship and conceptualization of academic languaging. This special issue provides a productive space in which to explore the interconnection between the theory and praxis of CSP and SFL and their applications across instructional contexts.

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