Talking about texts: The importance of metalinguistic talk about writing
The importance of talk in language learning is, perhaps, a familiar concept. We know of the importance of talk: in early language acquisition; in developing as readers and writers; and in fostering collaborative language learning environments. And yet, the potentiality of talk in developing writing, particularly beyond the early years, is much less researched. There is valuable work on talk for writing – the power of talk to support the generation of ideas for writing – but much less on talk about writing. This presentation will draw on the findings of successive research studies to offer a model of talk about writing which focuses developing writers’ knowledge about the language of written text.
The model of talk about writing builds theoretically on three key conceptualisations. Firstly, Gombert’s view of metalinguistic understanding (1992) as the capacity to reflect upon and monitor language use. Secondly, Halliday’s seminal work on language and grammar as a resource for meaning-making (1975), with its accompanying emphasis on the function of linguistic choices, rather than the form. And finally, we draw on Alexander’s work on dialogic talk (2020) as central to the process of learning. I will argue that by creating more and better opportunities for dialogic talk about writing, and being a writer, we can support students in becoming more aware of the way published written texts work, and the impact of linguistic choices made by the writer, and thus more confident in verbalising and explaining their own language choices. The presentation will draw on practical classroom examples throughout to illustrate the points being made. It will illustrate how metalinguistic talk about writing exploits the close relationship between reading and writing and foregrounds the reader-writer relationship; how the choices writers make shape our responses as readers; and how as writers we can craft our writing to align authorial intentions with potential reader responses. The presentation will conclude by making the point that greater attention to dialogic metalinguistic talk about writing within the teaching of writing can enable students to become more metalinguistically aware of the subtle meaning-making relationships between linguistic choice and rhetorical effect in writing, and through this, increasingly confident in writerly decision-making.
Linguistics and Knowledge about Language in Education 