Halliday’s paper: Sociolinguistic aspects of mathematical education
As a person who speaks English as a second language, I really understand the importance of a language, especially when you are far away from your home country, using a second language to study, work, communicate with local people in a foreign country. If you do not have enough proficiency in English, for example, in Canada, you will feel to be isolated by the local society. Language is not only a tool that we can draw on to express our ideas explicitly or interpret others’ opinions but also is an art, for example, how to use the exact words to convey your meaning precisely, how to use the language to show our respect, politeness without breaking local people’s customs when we talk to them. These are my personal experiences in the use of English in Canada. Although I had been learning English for more than 10 years when I was still in Shanghai, sometimes I found the English I learnt in China is different from the English I’m using now. So, in my view, to learn a second language needs a good language context, the same as the one in which we learn Chinese.
In this article, Halliday conferred the old word “register” with new meaning in a language context. He defined: “A register is a set of meanings that is appropriate to a particular function of language, together with the words and structures which express these meanings.” To be honest, this is the first time that I know the meaning of register in a language context. I think I need more readings to help me understand the meaning of “register” further.
Halliday mentioned that the development of a new register of mathematics will involve the introduction of new “thing-names” through reinterpreting existing words, creating new words, borrowing words from other languages, calquing, etc. This let me think how we should use the language in our math teaching. In my previous teaching, I sometimes employed new or reinterpreted words which are in accordance with my students’ daily language, the prevalence of the society, etc, as my classroom verbal interaction with my students.
I’m interested in knowing that Chinese favors calquing as meaning to creating new words in imitation of another language. I suddenly realized that it’s exactly true. In Chinese, we have a lot of exotic words imported from western countries. As for these exotic words, we use Chinese words which sound like the same pronunciation of English, such as cement (shui men ting), chocolate (qiao ke li), email (yi mei er), etc.
What I’m impressed with reading is the part of talking about the uniqueness of the mother tongue. When I speak mandarin or Shanghai dialect, I can express the same thing in different ways. That’s exactly true. When my students had difficulty in understanding one way of interpreting math concepts, I can immediately use several other alternatives with the same meaning to explain them. However, when I use English to teach math, I have to admit that I really have encountered the dilemma the author described in his paper. Halliday said: “the teacher who is forced to teach in a language other than his mother tongue has at his command only one way of saying something.” As a teacher, I know that language is very vital in our teaching. If I can not speak a second language freely, it’s hard for me to develop the ability to say the same thing in different ways, to predict what the other person is going to say or add new verbal skills.
Finally, I agree to the author’s opinion: the more informal talk goes on between teacher and learner around the concept, relating to it obliquely through all the modes of learning that are available in the context, the more help the learner is getting in mastering it. Mathematics teaching definitely involves lots of language conveying the understanding of concepts and problems. That means language is a key factor leading to students’ efficient final understanding of math knowledge. Therefore, it’s necessary for us to study the relationship between language and math education. The benefit from the study is how we can use language to facilitate and enhance students’ math learning.
As a person who speaks English as a second language, I really understand the importance of a language, especially when you are far away from your home country, using a second language to study, work, communicate with local people in a foreign country. If you do not have enough proficiency in English, for example, in Canada, you will feel to be isolated by the local society. Language is not only a tool that we can draw on to express our ideas explicitly or interpret others’ opinions but also is an art, for example, how to use the exact words to convey your meaning precisely, how to use the language to show our respect, politeness without breaking local people’s customs when we talk to them. These are my personal experiences in the use of English in Canada. Although I had been learning English for more than 10 years when I was still in Shanghai, sometimes I found the English I learnt in China is different from the English I’m using now. So, in my view, to learn a second language needs a good language context, the same as the one in which we learn Chinese.
In this article, Halliday conferred the old word “register” with new meaning in a language context. He defined: “A register is a set of meanings that is appropriate to a particular function of language, together with the words and structures which express these meanings.” To be honest, this is the first time that I know the meaning of register in a language context. I think I need more readings to help me understand the meaning of “register” further.
Halliday mentioned that the development of a new register of mathematics will involve the introduction of new “thing-names” through reinterpreting existing words, creating new words, borrowing words from other languages, calquing, etc. This let me think how we should use the language in our math teaching. In my previous teaching, I sometimes employed new or reinterpreted words which are in accordance with my students’ daily language, the prevalence of the society, etc, as my classroom verbal interaction with my students.
I’m interested in knowing that Chinese favors calquing as meaning to creating new words in imitation of another language. I suddenly realized that it’s exactly true. In Chinese, we have a lot of exotic words imported from western countries. As for these exotic words, we use Chinese words which sound like the same pronunciation of English, such as cement (shui men ting), chocolate (qiao ke li), email (yi mei er), etc.
What I’m impressed with reading is the part of talking about the uniqueness of the mother tongue. When I speak mandarin or Shanghai dialect, I can express the same thing in different ways. That’s exactly true. When my students had difficulty in understanding one way of interpreting math concepts, I can immediately use several other alternatives with the same meaning to explain them. However, when I use English to teach math, I have to admit that I really have encountered the dilemma the author described in his paper. Halliday said: “the teacher who is forced to teach in a language other than his mother tongue has at his command only one way of saying something.” As a teacher, I know that language is very vital in our teaching. If I can not speak a second language freely, it’s hard for me to develop the ability to say the same thing in different ways, to predict what the other person is going to say or add new verbal skills.
Finally, I agree to the author’s opinion: the more informal talk goes on between teacher and learner around the concept, relating to it obliquely through all the modes of learning that are available in the context, the more help the learner is getting in mastering it. Mathematics teaching definitely involves lots of language conveying the understanding of concepts and problems. That means language is a key factor leading to students’ efficient final understanding of math knowledge. Therefore, it’s necessary for us to study the relationship between language and math education. The benefit from the study is how we can use language to facilitate and enhance students’ math learning.
1 comment:
Well done, Julia!
It is important to share with the class the experience you are having in teaching and doing graduate work in your second language (and beyond that, just doing everyday tasks and getting around in society in your second language). You may not realize how hard you're working and how much you're learning from that experience till you go back to your "mother tongue" for a visit, and see how easy it is in comparison!
I sometimes worry when you write about students' mathematical knowledge being "final" or our teaching being "efficient". I know there is virtue in efficiency, but we should remember that education is not an industrial process, and people's understanding can always be augmented, deepened, reframed -- it's not final till we're dead!
On calquing vs. loan words: You're right that Chinese does use a lot of calquing, but the examples you've given are straight loan words (relatively unusual in Chinese compared to Japanese). Calques are "loan translations" -- for example, Mandarin words like (excuse me if I make errors here!) "jing ji" (economy) that translates the Greek root word of 'economy' meaning 'household management', or the Mandarin word for ' democracy'(is it min ju ju yi?) that literally translates the Greek root 'demos' = people + 'cracy'= power.
Susan
mark: 2 + 1 bonus = 3
Post a Comment