Understanding and Evaluating L2 Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Student Texts in German

Abstract

Adopting a genre lens informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics (cf. Halliday & Matthiessen, ; Martin & Rose, ), this paper explores the text‐structural and lexico‐grammatical choices that second language (L2) writers of German make in personal letter writing. Close analysis of two student texts from an advanced, content‐based, college‐level German course help to illustrate more and less successful realizations of a complex letter task. Both genre and register analyses of these texts show how letter writing can offer L2 learners opportunities to practice evaluative (especially affective) discourse and develop understanding for different subject positions. Key text‐structural and linguistic patterns are summarized in a writing rubric that teachers can use to guide and assess students’ personal letter writing. As the writing task at the center of the study is based on the young‐adult novel, Damals war es Friedrich (1961), and is situated within an instructional unit on German memories of the Holocaust, the analysis additionally contributes to ongoing dialogue concerning the teaching of the Holocaust (cf. Hirsch & Kacandes, ), by focusing on students’ engagement with the content material through a linguistic perspective.

Students’ Problems in Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective

“…One of many variations of text genre is a personal letter, it is the most basic type of written language communication (Barton & Hall, 2000). Moreover, personal letters are often purposed to deliver news, to keep a social relationship, and to achieve a particular conversation purpose associated with specific occasions (Crane, 2016). Therefore, the specific communicative goals adopted by letters often relate to the relationship construction for both the writer and the reader.…”

“…Further, two related studies in the SFL analysis field will be presented. The first study was conducted by Crane (2016), the author concerned with fostering foreign language teachers in understanding and evaluating the personal letter as one of the text genres. Further, the author believed that teachers' knowledge of genre might help them in supporting their students in improving their literacy abilities.…”

Understanding and Evaluating Personal Letter Writing: A Systemic Functional Linguistics Analysis of Student Texts in One of Senior High School in Indonesia

“…As based on Senior High School Syllabus of 2013 Curriculum, Personal Letter itself is one of text genres that should be taught to the students. However, personal letter seems to be more challenging, commonly addressed to intimates, since it needs an absence of knowledge by both the reader and writer to be shared (Crane, 2016). Writing personal letter in a foreign language is also connected to the needs to present an identifiable set of procedures to fulfil the criteria on tasks like discussing personal issues, congratulating, inviting, greeting, and so forth that are culturally bind.…”

Textual Borrowing and Perspective-Taking: A Genre-Based Approach to L2 Writing

“…This article reports on a qualitative investigation of implementing genre-based pedagogy in an advanced collegiate French course. Although this approach has been investigated by several researchers in collegiate German programs (e.g., Byrnes, Maxim, & Norris, 2010;Crane, 2016;Warren & Winkler, 2016), publications exploring genre-based pedagogies in post-secondary FLs other than German remain primarily descriptive (e.g., Allen, 2009;Kumagai & Iwasaki, 2016;Sommer, 2016). Moreover, research on this approach in collegiate FL programs tends to focus on learning outcomes rather than on learner perspectives on this pedagogy.…”