posted on 2017-06-02, 01:19authored byKate Chanock
While systemic functional linguistics illuminates many of the language practices of university students, its terminology can be daunting. I am interested in finding ways of offering insights from systemics with the minimum of jargon, to help students with the problems they experience in negotiating academic discourse. One such attempt is a session for postgraduates on density in writing, and some differences between speaking and writing in academic contexts. The session, described in this paper, suggests ways making writing more readable, and a procedure by which students can identify the linguistic changes needed to turn a chapter or article into an oral presentation.