Who: TESOL/TFL students & all others with an interest in languages
What: Guest speaker Beverly Derewianka
When: Friday, February 19, 2010, 2:00-4:00 PM
Where: Morse, Room B104

Getting Personal: Using language to engage with readers to express feelings, persuade others to our point of view, judge peoples’ behavior, and moderate our expression of attitude.

A major function of language is to enable the expression of interpersonal meanings – feelings, opinions, judgments, humor, sarcasm, and so on. Often, however, this important aspect of language competency is not taught explicitly, possibly because such meanings are so deeply embedded in the culture that even native speakers are not consciously aware of how they employ these subtle resources. This paper will draw on Appraisal Theory (Martin & White 2005) for a model to help language teachers think about such issues as:

• how is language used to express feelings, persuade others to our point of view, judge peoples’ behavior, and so on?
• how can we moderate our expression of attitude?
• how can we use language to engage with the reader in various ways?

GSTILE welcomes everyone and hopes to see you there.