Online Support for Learning French at University

This paper will focus on ways in which the Internet is being used at the University of Sydney for teaching and learning French at introductory and advanced levels. First, we will discuss the online component of the beginner's course, which has been developed to enrich and complement classroom interaction. We will discuss some of the choices involved in the design of the online FRNC1101 site, which aims at providing useful resources both for supporting what students learn in the classroom context and for encouraging autonomous learning. Secondly, we will discuss how advanced learners of French use online data for research purposes. We will present the projects students had to complete, and give examples of the ways in which they undertook their research. Finally, we will present a summary of students' perceptions and evaluations of these new modes of learning. How does it affect their learning process, as well as their ability to interact in the target language? Does it encourage communication? These are some of the questions that we will address.Hosted by the Scholarly Text and Imaging Service (SETIS), the University of Sydney Library, and the Research Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (RIHSS), the University of Sydney

A systemic functional approach to analysing and interpreting ideology: an illustration from French editorials

This article proposes a methodology for the analysis of ideology drawing on systemic functional theory and using as a case study two French editorials. Editorials - which offer an interpretation of key events intended to give an overall direction to the reader’s understanding of the world - are a privileged site for the construal of opinion and therefore for the analysis of ideology and evaluative language in journalistic discourse. In this article we undertake an analysis of appraisal resources and transitivity in two editorials from French newspapers of contrasting political orientation, Le Figaro and Libération, to highlight how they construe ideology through the foregrounding of particular patterns of linguistic choices. We will show how these patterns interact in the text to convey the ideology of each newspaper and to persuade the reader to adopt its perspective on the event (the kidnaping of two French journalists) and on the action/position that should be taken

Introduction : systemic functional typology

76 page(s

A systemic functional grammar of French : from grammar to discourse /

Met register en bibliografi

Typology of MOOD : a text-based and system-based functional view

This chapter is a 'case study' in systemic functional typology: the principles of systemic functional typology are applied to propose generalisations about grammatical systems by means of which interactants exchange meanings in dialogue in different languages. Such systems for dialogic negotiation are known as mood systems. The generalisations proposed here are based on comprehensive, text-based and meaning-oriented systemic functional descriptions of a range of languages, six of which are sketched here (Oko, Spanish, French, Danish, Thai and Japanese), on descriptions couched in terms of other frameworks and typological accounts from the general typology literature. After a brief characterisation of systemic functional typology (Section 2), we will present certain generalisations about MOOD systems in different languages (Section 3) and then move on to illustrations from the six languages included in this chapter (Section 4)

Situating simultaneity: An initial schematisation of the lexicogrammatical rank scale of British Sign Language

A central tenet of systemic functional theory is the rank scale: an ordered representation of the part-whole relationships of units within semiotic systems. Linguists have schematised the rank scales for the lexicogrammars of English, French, Spanish and Chinese, to name a few. However, such schematisation has yet to occur for languages in the visual-spatial modality (i.e., sign languages). This paper contributes to current literature by establishing a working schematisation of the lexicogrammatical rank scale of British Sign Language (BSL). By taking a glottocentric perspective and with reference to systemic functional theory and BSL data, this work demonstrates that it is possible to create an organised rank scale for a language operating the visual-spatial modality as long as the productive simultaneity found within is accounted for sufficiently. This is enacted through a more detailed elaboration of the morpheme rank, so that higher ranks may be represented accurately. This study provides the foundations for similar rank scales of semiotic systems operating in the visual-spatial modality to be schematised, while also suggesting areas for further empirical investigation in both systemic functionalism and sign linguistics